ClassificationsAncient Egyptian Art

Relief of Men Sharpening a Knife

Place CreatedEgypt, Africa

CultureEgyptian

PeriodOld Kingdom, Dynasty 5 - Dynasty 6

Date2435-2152 BCE

MediumLimestone

Credit LineCharlotte Lichirie Collection of Egyptian Art by exchange

Dimensions15 3/4 x 7 1/8 x 1 1/2" (40 x 18.1 x 3.8 cm)

Object number2005.043.001

Label TextOld Kingdom mastaba tombs were decorated with elaborate reliefs representing the many activities needed to sustain the tomb owner in the next life. These activities included the provisioning of the tomb at the time of the owners interment and were meant to record the original deposit of grave goods and food stuffs but also to ensure that the tomb would be supplied in perpetuity. This relief is one such scene depicting a male figure sharpening a knife as the other commands him to "sharpen it". This scene would have been part of a larger butchering scene with each of the steps taken to correctly butcher the animal represented. Such explicit representations in tombs assured that the tomb owner's sustenance in the afterlife would be maintained. The Egyptians understood the afterlife as largely analogous to the world in which they lived. Therefore the dead needed food in the next life as they did in this one and by extension, to acquire food in the afterlife, the same processes used in this life would have to be carried out in the next to prepare it. In a tomb context, these needs would ideally be met many times over-the actual offerings given to the dead would be there to sustain them, and the images of the food and their production would serve the tomb owner after their funerary cult had died away or if the burial goods were compromised. In this way, images of food production served as a sort of insurance policy in the afterlife.
Exhibition HistoryFrom Pharaohs to Emperors: New Egyptian and Classical Antiquities at Emory, Michael C. Carlos Museum, January 14 - April 2, 2006
Life and Death in the Pyramid Age: The Emory Old Kingdom Mummy, Michael C. Carlos Museum, September 10 - December 11, 2011
Hall of Ancient Egypt, The Houston Museum of Natural Science, Houston, Texas, August 2014 - Present
Published ReferencesSotheby's London, Antiquities (21st May 1992), 14, plate X, lot 85.

ProvenanceWith Sotheby's London, 21 May 1992, lot 85. Ex private collection, New York, acquired from Jerome Eisenberg (1930-2022) [Royal-Athena Galleries]], New York, New York, 1994. Purchased through partial exchange by MCCM from Sue McGovern-Huffman [Sands of Time Antiquities], Washington DC.

Status

Not on view

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