Openwork representation of a female sphinx whose human hands present a cartouche with the prenomen of Amenhotep III Neb-Maat-Re. This sphinx is often identified as Queen Tiye whose name is indeed in some cases written beside a sphinx image. It is, however, also possible that the creature on this bracelet plaque represents a mythic being of a more general nature. Wings, headdress and jewelry point to close connections with foreign lands (Nubia, Asia, Shasu Bedouins), and the presentation of the king's name was a ritual that another, closely connected bracelet plaque (26.7.1340) shows in connection with the king's jubilee (Heb Sed).
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Title:Carved Plaque from a Bracelet
Period:New Kingdom
Dynasty:Dynasty 18
Reign:reign of Amenhotep III
Date:ca. 1390–1352 B.C.
Geography:From Egypt, Upper Egypt, Thebes
Medium:Sard
Dimensions:H. 3.4 cm (1 5/16 in.); W. 4.9 cm (1 15/16 in.); Th. 0.2 cm (1/16 in.)
Credit Line:Purchase, Edward S. Harkness Gift, 1926
Object Number:26.7.1342
Purchased in Thebes by Lord Carnarvon (d. 1923). Carnarvon Collection until 1926. Purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art from Almina, Countess of Carnarvon, 1926.
Newberry, Percy E. and H. R. Hall 1922. Catalogue of an Exhibition of Ancient Egyptian Art. London: Burlington Fine Arts Club, p. 27 no. 39C pl. 51.
Lythgoe, Albert M. 1927. "The Carnarvon Egyptian Collection." In The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 22, no. 2 (February), p. 34 (photo).
Hayes, William C. 1959. Scepter of Egypt II: A Background for the Study of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Hyksos Period and the New Kingdom (1675-1080 B.C.). Cambridge, Mass.: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 242–43, fig. 147.
Porter, Bertha and Rosalind L.B. Moss 1964. Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings: The Theban Necropolis. Royal Tombs and Smaller Cemeteries, vol. I part 2a. Oxford, 588.
Aldred, Cyril 1968. Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt, New Aspects of Antiquity, London: Thames & Hudson, p. 186, pl. 89.
Lilyquist, Christine, Peter F. Dorman, and Edna R. Russmann 1983. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 41, no. 3 (Winter), New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 34, fig. 34 (ERR).
Reeves, Nicholas 1990. The Complete Tutankhamun: the King, the Tomb, the Royal Treasure. New York: Thames & Hudson, 48.
Kozloff, Arielle P., Betsy Bryan, and Lawrence Michael Berman 1992. Egypt's Dazzling Sun: Amenhotep III and his World. Cleveland: Indiana University Press, no. 123, pp. 442-444 ( L. Berman, B. Bryan); pl. 62, p. 421.
Arnold, Dorothea 1996. The Royal Women of Amarna: Images of Beauty from Ancient Egypt. New York, fig. 102, p. 107.
Bryan, Betsy 1996. "Art, Empire, and the End of the Late Bronze Age. The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference." In The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-First Century, pp. 69-70.
Dodson, Aidan M. 2004. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson, Pp.157.
2006. Sphinx : les gardiens de l'Égypte. Brussels, cat. no. 177 pp. 290-1, ill. p. 34; entry by Dorothea Arnold.
Arnold, Dorothea 2008. "Plaque with Sphinx." In Beyond Babylon: art, trade, and diplomacy in the second millennium B.C., edited by Joan Aruz, Kim Benzel, and Joan Evans. New York; New Haven and London: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 144–5, no. 84.
Johnson, George B. 2010. "Circa 1365 BC or 1914 AD. Reconsidering the Queen Tiye-as-Sphinx bracelet plaque." In KMT, 21, pp. 18-29.
Bayer, Christian 2014. Die den Herrn Beider Länder mit ihrer Schönheit erfreut Teje. Eine ikonographische Studie. Berlin, Dok. 92 pp. 377-9, pl. 83e.
Gabolde, Marc 2015. "La tiare de Nefertiti et les origines de la reine." In Joyful in Thebes. Egyptological Studies in Honor of Betsy M. Bryan, pp. 160-165.
2023. Ancient Egyptian gold: Archaeology and science in jewellry (3500-1000 BC). Cambridge UK, p. 384.
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The Met's collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 26,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from the Paleolithic to the Roman period.
