Royal hand

Blocks from Amarna formal structures were removed from the site after the end of the Amarna royal line, and were reused within constructions at other sites in Egypt. A good number of them were taken to nearby Hermopolis and used at the Temple of Thoth by Ramesses II. Many of those were uncovered in German excavations just before World War II, and many others now in collections around the world are traceable to that site. The new Amarna Talatat Project seeks to digitally reassemble the blocks to reconstruct scenes and determine the original buildings from which the blocks were taken at Amarna. A recent study has been able to identify the mysterious block 1985.328.1 and the figure whose hand is represented, and has revealed that the block 1985.328.22 belonged to either the same or a related scene.

The hand depicted on block 1985.328.1 has long been appreciated for its languid beauty, but has not been satisfactorily explained. The original insight was in realizing that the exact gesture was already known from Tutankhamun’s golden shrine: Ankhsenamun, seated at the king’s feet, points elegantly towards fowl in the marsh while turning her head back to murmur to the king as she hands him an arrow. The museum’s block depicts precisely that sort of scene but on the scale of a palace or temple wall.

Then, in comparing other blocks from the Amarna period discovered at Hermopolis, a join was discovered that connects the faint traces of text in the upper right corner of our block with another that preserves text and the top of the head of a female turned to the right. The headdress was the "Nubian wig’’ of the King’s wife Kiya, recarved subsequently as they virtually always were to depict the princess Meritaten’s with her sidelock, and the traces of text reveal that it was the king’s second wife Kiya who was originally depicted! (Figure 1)

With the clue that a hunt in the marshes was represented, it was possible to associate 1985.328.1 with other blocks having wetland life as the subject, all in the same style and at the same scale. These depict watery life and the margins of a pool.(Figure 2) Among them is the museum block 1985.328.22, divided in the center by the broad vertical border of a pool indicated to the right by zigzag water lines. The pool is inhabited by a large fish and water lilies. To the left outside the pool, the top of the head of a human figure may be seen at the lower left. The figure carries apparently a spear on which are impaled a tilapia large fish and a limp, dead duck whose head and wing are visible.

Also among the blocks with marsh hunt subject matter are ones that indicate that figures of the seated king and a woman crouching at his feet also faced in the opposite direction. Possibly two different large scenes depicted the king’s wives, one of them definitely Kiya, attending him at a hunt in the marsh. Or, it may be only one scene with mirrored depictions of Akhenaten and Kiya by the marsh covered a large wall expanse.

Perhaps further research by the project will tell.

W. Raymond Johnson, Director of the Epigraphic Survey, Oriental Institute of Chicago, Amarna Talatat Project 2017

See further: W. Raymond Johnson, "A Royal Fishing and Fowling Talatat Scene from Amarna," KMT 26/4 (2015-2016) 40-50.

Norbert Schimmel Collection by 1964 (Hoffman, Beauty of Ancient Art catalog, no. 104), published and exhibited frequently from that time; on loan and on display at The Met from 1979 until it was donated by Mr. Schimmel in 1985.

Roeder, Günther E. 1959. Hermopolis, 1929-1939: Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Hermopolis-Expedition in Hermopolis, Ober-Ägypten, Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichung (Pelizaeus-Museum), 4. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, p. 404, pl. 173.

Cooney, John 1965. Amarna Reliefs from Hermopolis in American Collections. New York: Brooklyn Museum, no. 2.

Müller, Maya and John Cooney 1974. Ancient Art: The Norbert Schimmel Collection. Mainz am Rhein: P. von Zabern, no. 241.

Dorman, Peter F. 1986. Recent Acquisitions: A Selection, 1985-1986 (New York, 1986). 6-7.

Roehrig, Catharine H. and Marsha Hill 1992. "Ancient Art: Gifts from the Norbert Schimmel Collection: Egyptian." In The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, new ser., vol. 49, no. 4 (Spring), p. 57, no. 33.

Freed, Rita, Elena Pischikova, Yvonne J. Markowitz, and Sue D'Auria 1999. Pharaohs of the Sun: Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Tutankhamen. Boston, no. 58, p. 222 (E. Pischikova).

2012. In the Light of Amarna. 100 Years of the Nefertiti Discovery. Berlin: Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, p. 151 fig. 6 (Do. Arnold essay).

Johnson, W. Raymond 2016. "A Royal Fishing and Fowling Talatat Scene from Amarna." In KMT, 26/4, figs. pp. 40, 41, 44.

2019. Toutankhamon: à la découverte du pharaon oublié. Exposition organisée à l'espace Europa expo à la gare TGV des Guillemins, Liège, 14 décembre 2019 - 31 mai 2020. p. 165 fig. 6.