These relief blocks, forming a corner, come from the tomb of the high official and priest named Akhtihotep. Its interior rooms were lined with fine limestone panels, and decorated with reliefs like the ones you see here. Both of the figures represent Akhtihotep, but in different garments. On the right he wears a simple kilt; on the left he donned a leopard skin over the kilt. Leopard skins were a garment typically worn by priests in ancient Egypt.

These two images are also good examples of Egyptian conventions for depicting human figures in two-dimensional art. Akhtihotep’s head is shown in profile, but his eye looks straight out. His shoulders are full-view, but the nipple, buttocks, legs, and feet are in profile. His stomach is also shown in profile, but the navel was depicted full-view and placed near the front contour of the stomach. The combination of these characteristics is not anatomically possible. But it allowed the artist to show every part of a person from the most characteristic angle.

The figures emerge abruptly from the background of this relief and there is not much interior modeling. For example, the musculature is indicated with great precision along the outlines of the figures but only individually rounded in a few places on the surface. The rather high raised relief is typical of late Third or early Fourth Dynasty art.