This large stela was once inserted into the upper part of a tomb’s false door, where plaster would have disguised its unfinished edges. It is carved in low raised relief. Details on the lower third of the relief are better preserved than they are on the abraded middle and upper sections. Although it was probably painted, all traces of pigment are now lost.1

The hieroglyphic captions above the seated figures identify the man as a judge and scribe named Tjenti and the woman as the lady Nefret, his wife.^[1] The two figures sit on either side of an offering table heaped with tall loaves of bread, toward which each extends a hand. Nefret wears a tight-fitting sheath gown that reaches her ankles, a choker, a pectoral with a rectangular panel of beads supported on wide straps, and a wide bracelet on each wrist. Her breast is exposed.^[2] Her hair (or wig) is in the tripartite style, with tresses falling over her shoulder(s) and down her back. A short lock of hair is visible in front of her ear. She has an oversize, almond-shaped eye and a heavy eyebrow. Her mouth is downturned, giving her a severe expression. Her husband wears a knee-length, unpleated, wrapped kilt with a looped belt.^[3] Tjenti’s hair is closely cropped. His eye and eyebrow are rendered in the same way as his wife’s.2

Tjenti and Nefret’s son, also named Tjenti and so identified by the caption behind his head, stands behind his mother. Although most of the text that would have given his title is illegible, the word “palace” is preserved, suggesting that he had a role in the royal administration. His clothing and hairstyle copy those of his father.3

At the upper left stands a small figure of a girl with short hair. She appears to be nude except for the bracelet on her right wrist. She is identified by the text above her head as the “daughter of his [Tjenti’s] son, Neferhathor.” Here, the young age of Tjenti’s granddaughter Neferhathor is indicated by her smaller scale, by her nudity, and her gesture of placing her finger to her mouth, all artistic traditions for representing a child. Neferhathor affectionately touches her grandfather’s shoulder.4

The representations of Tjenti and Nefret display the classic conventions for portraying hands and feet. Both figures have identical left and right hands; the hand nearer the viewer is oriented upside down with the thumb at the bottom. This unrealistic rendering of the hands is not due to a lack of skill on the part of the artist, but to a general aversion for showing the palm, and also to the desire to show all digits of the hand, one or more of which would have been hidden from view if represented naturalistically.^[4] In contrast, the younger Tjenti’s hands, clenched into fists, are both anatomically correct, with the fingers on the left hand—that closest to the viewer—obscured from our view, a nearly uniform feature of such portrayals.5

The feet exhibit the convention of showing the large toe, and in the case of Tjenti the son, also the arch, on both the near and far feet, ignoring the anatomical differences between right and left. Although the decision to portray feet in this manner has been attributed to “the difficulty of drawing them [the toes] from the outside,” contemporaneous representations of animal paws are anatomically correct, indicating that Egyptian artists were capable of depicting feet from all angles but chose not to.^[5] Indeed, from the end of Dynasty 18 (about 1500 BCE) going forward, the near and far feet are clearly differentiated.6

Upon closer inspection, what at first glance may appear to be a typical scene of the deceased seated before offerings in fact displays a number of unconventional features that signal Nefret’s high status. The man and wife are shown on different styles of seats. Tjenti’s has bovine legs—the carved feet of which are protected by raised spools—and a flaring papyrus umbel at the rear. The stool is equipped with a rounded cushion, visible behind his buttocks. This cushioned stool is a common style of furniture in Old Kingdom reliefs.^[6] In contrast, Nefret is on a block-shaped seat whose short backrest is covered by a cushion or throw, a combination that has been described as being “ordinarily reserved for sovereigns.”^[7] Indeed two other examples of this type of chair occur in reliefs in the tombs of members of the royal family at Giza. One is on a false door in the tomb of Princess Wenshet, the other in the tomb of Queen Meresankh III, both of Dynasty 4.^[8]7

Nefret’s elevated social position also is conveyed by her jewelry. Her tight-fitting choker was worn by royal women during the reign of King Khufu, and her beaded pectoral, although rare, resembles those on representations of a granddaughter of Khufu.^[9] The combination of the style of Nefret’s throne, her jewelry, and the reference to the palace in the text associated with her son suggests that Nefret herself was a member of the royal family.8

Date

Although previously dated to Dynasty 5, features of the composition and texts suggest Dynasty 4.^[10] The other examples of Nefret’s chair are dated to that era and, as noted, her jewelry is in the style of that time.^[11] The tall, curved bread loaves that sit directly on the surface of the table, the shape of the table itself, and the accompanying inscriptions also support that earlier date, because of their similarity to those shown on the false door of Wenshet’s tomb.^[12] The clothing also indicates a Dynasty 4 date. The kilts with looped belts worn by the father and son are of a style that has been assigned to late Dynasty 4.^[13]9

The offering texts are copies of the lists of offerings that appear on the slab stelae from the Giza necropolis in the reign of King Khufu of Dynasty 4.^[14] The badly eroded signs above the table call for purification of “three pellets of incense, [illegible], green and black eye-paint, best ointment, baked bread, natron, [illegible], white sekhet cakes, a container of cool water, and a basin and ewer for washing.”^[15] To the right of the pedestal of the table “a thousand of bread, a thousand of beer” are evoked, and to the left, “a thousand of linen, a thousand of all alabaster [vessels]”—the essential provisions that make up the standard offering formula found, with minor variations, on funerary reliefs throughout most of Egypt’s long pharaonic history.10

The Chicago relief displays other features exhibited on some of the Dynasty 4 slab stelae from Giza: the arrangement of these texts to the left and right of the pedestal of the table, the omission of the expected “oxen and fowl,” and the reversal of the tall, looped “s” hieroglyph 𓋴 used on most of the slab stelae.^[16] The low raised relief technique is also characteristic of Dynasty 4.^[17] These elements suggest that the relief of Tjenti is an important transition from the slab-stela tradition to the false door with tablet that immediately followed the reign of Khufu.11

Original Location

It has been suggested that this relief comes from Giza mastaba G 3035, one of the earliest Dynasty 4 tombs built in that part of the necropolis.^[18] A lintel from the false door of that tomb bearing the names “Tjenti” and “Nefret” is in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia (E13548).12

Provenance

Maurice Nahman (1868–1948), Cairo; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago through James Henry Breasted as agent, 1919.13

Publication History

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 23, 26 (ill.), 27.14

Emily Teeter, “Egyptian Art,” in “Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” special issue, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 20, no. 1 (1994): 18, no. 1.15

Marianne Eaton-Krauss, “An Offering Table Scene in the Art Institute, Chicago,” Göttinger Miszellen: Beiträge zur ägyptologische Diskussion 219 (2008): 19–22, pl. 1.16

Roberta Casagrande-Kim, ed., When the Greeks Ruled Egypt: From Alexander the Great to Cleopatra, with contributions by Mary C. Greuel et al., exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 2014), 21, fig. 1-3.17

Emily Teeter, “Collecting for Chicago: James Henry Breasted and the Egyptian Collections,” Oriental Institute News and Notes, no. 226 (2015): 7 (ill.).
18