Document Sealing With the Throne Name of Amenhotep III

New Kingdom

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 120

This sealing preserved two partial impressions of the same seal. Only the right half of the seal can be reconstructed. It shows a seated king wearing the double crown and holding a maat-feather (a writing of ,"Nebmaatre, Amenhotep III's throne name). Behind the king are hieroglyphs that spell the word "rejoicing," part of the name of Amenhotep's festival city at Malqata which was called the "House of Rejoicing." The other part of this phrase (House of) was probably written at the far left of the seal. Below the king is a hieroglyph representing the word "beloved" which suggests that the original seal had the image of a seated god facing the king.

At the northern end of Malqata there is a temple built of mud brick, many of which are stamped "The Temple of Amun in the House of Rejoicing," so it is possible that the god represented on the seal was Amun. If so, it would be possible to reconstruct the original text as "Nebmaatre, beloved of Amun in the House of Rejoicing." However, many of the sealings from the site associate the king with other deities, so this reconstruction cannot be certain.

Document Sealing With the Throne Name of Amenhotep III, Mud

This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Open Access

As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.

API

Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.