limestone

Relief of a High Official

As perhaps the most powerful official of his time in southern Egypt, Montuemhat had one of the largest and most lavishly decorated nonroyal tombs known. Although this relief is probably of the man himself, it is not a portrait. Rather, It is an idealizing, archalzing image reflecting the style of Theban works of Dynasty XVIII and possibly also the Middle Kingdom. The fortuitous blackening of the relief's surface is the result of a burning of unknown date.

• Culture: Egyptian
• Medium: Limestone
• Possible Place Collected: Thebes, Egypt
• Dates: ca. 670-650 B.C.E.
• Dynasty: late XXV Dynasty-early XXVI Dynasty
• Period: late Third Intermediate Period-early Late Period
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