Relief Fragment Depicting Meret-Teti-iyet with Offerings
Date:
First Intermediate Period, Dynasty 10, about 2025 BCE
Artist:
Egyptian; offering niche of Meret-Teti-iyet, Teti Pyramid Cemetery, Saqqara, Egypt
About this artwork
This pair of panels (along with 1910.223) was part of a painted offering niche designed for a woman named Meret-Teti-iyet. The fragmentary upper scenes depict people bringing offerings to sustain her in the afterlife. Meret-Teti-iyet sits behind piles of food at the bottom of each panel, facing approaching visitors. On the other panel, she holds a closed lotus blossom on her lap; on this one, she sniffs an open lotus flower. The lotus, which opens with the rising sun and sinks beneath the water at night, was a symbol of renewal and rebirth in ancient Egypt.
Relief Fragment Depicting Meret-Teti-iyet with Offerings
Place
Saqqara (Object made in)
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Main Inscription: "The one who is revered before Anubis who is upon his mountain, Meret-Teti-iyet"; Above Man: "A thousand of bread, a thousand of beer, a thousand of oxen, a thousand of fowl, a thousand of alabaster, a thousand of clothing"
Dimensions
71.1 × 61 × 14 cm (28 × 24 × 5 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
W. Moses Willner Fund
Reference Number
1910.224
IIIF Manifest
The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.
J.E. Quibell, Excavations at Saqqara (1906-1907) (Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1908), pp. 18, 73, pl. X.3 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Thirty-second Annual Report: June 1, 1910–June 1, 1911 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1911), pp. 19, 62.
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1923), pp. 29, 30 (ill.), 31-32, 35, 39 note 2.
Bertha Porter and Rosalind L.B. Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings. III: Memphis. Part 2: Saqqâra to Dahshûr, 2nd ed. (Griffith Institute/Ashmolean Museum, 1981), p. 563.
Khaled Abdulla Daoud, Corpus of Inscriptions of the Herakleopolitan Period from the Memphite Necropolis: Translation, Commentary and Analyses (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2005), 164–65; 326, pl. XCIV.
Khaled Daoud, Necropoles Memphiticae: Inscriptions from the Herakleopolitan Period (Alexandria: Bibliotheca Alexandrina, 2011), 304-306, fig. 115.
Art Institute of Chicago, Life and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, Feb. 11, 2022 - present.
The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in 1910.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.