Limestone Painted and Carved

A painted and carved limestone relief that once decorated a wall in the Theban tomb (TT34) of Montuemhet, the ‘Fourth Priest of Amun, the Mayor of Thebes’ in Luxor. It dates to circa 656 BCE, at the end of the 25th Dynasty and start of the 26th Dynasty, during the Third Intermediate Period. This piece is now in the Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago, USA. Photo (edited): Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

The scene is of a reed boat conveying two large fruit baskets as funerary offerings to the tomb of the mayor. Two oarsmen are paddling the boat while the captain, holding his staff of office, raises his right arm and points his index finger, either to show the way or in a gesture of magical protection seen in Old Kingdom river scenes. Splendid fish are swimming in the river, just barely avoiding the movement of the oars!

River scenes have been common in Egyptian art since the time of the Predynastic Period (starting circa 5300 BCE and possibly earlier). The Nile dominated (and still does to a large extent) the Egyptian world. It supplied not merely reliable water but equally reliable alluvial deposits and agricultural fertilization. The Nile also provided transport. Every part of Egypt where people lived and worked was within a few kilometers of river transport. Thanks to the great river, Egypt had the best internal communications system of any land in antiquity.