This lower left section of a stela carved in sunk relief portrays a man facing right, his hands raised in a gesture of adoration. He wears a tunic with pleated sleeves and another pleated cloth tied around his hips over the tunic. His wig is composed of curls that end in points on his shoulders. His heavy eyebrow follows the contours of the cosmetic line that delineates his eye. The man has a small goatee and wears no jewelry. The three wrinkles on his stomach are an artistic convention conveying affluence, for only the wealthy could eat well enough to accumulate rolls of fat around their bellies.1

The few remaining hieroglyphic signs above and behind the man’s head identify him as the “Foreman of the Workers [in the Place of Truth], Nefer[hotep].”^[1] The Place of Truth is the ancient name for Deir el-Medina, a village in western Thebes (now Luxor). The settlement was established about 1504 BCE, during the reign of Thutmose I. Deir el-Medina was a “company town” where the artists who worked on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and their families lived in row houses provided by the state. The government provided residents with rations of grain, fish, oil, water, wood for cooking, and other goods, making it possible for the men of the village to devote themselves to the building projects. Deir el-Medina continued in use for about five hundred years.2

Workmen at Deir el-Medina

We have a tremendous amount of documentation about Deir el-Medina’s organization and the administration of its residents, most of it dating from Dynasty 19 and 20. The number of workmen at Deir el-Medina varied from about forty to one hundred twenty, depending upon the scale of the building projects going on at the site. The workmen were under the supervision of two foremen (a position held by Neferhotep), a scribe, and possibly assistant scribes. The workers were divided into a “gang of the left [side of the tomb]” and a “gang of the right [side of the tomb],” each group working under their respective foreman.^[2]3

The men worked nine days of the ten-day week, leaving the short weekend free for them to pursue their own artistic commissions. Letters and receipts record that artisans traded their own creations for those made by other members of their gang with different areas of specialization. This stela was probably privately commissioned by Neferhotep from one of the other workers and the fineness of the carving reflects his access to the best artisans of the village.4

The foremen were very important in the village, serving as the representatives of the state administration. The tombs of foremen were larger than those of the workers, attesting to their wealth. About half of the foremen were sons of other foremen. The Neferhotep depicted on this stela came from a family that supplied three foremen over three consecutive generations, each of them a supervisor of the “gang of the right.”^[3] From textual sources, we know of two Neferhoteps, one who lived at the end of Dynasty 18 during the reign of Horemheb. His grandson, also named Neferhotep, lived in Dynasty 19, dying some half a century after his grandfather, early in the reign of Seti II, after having served as foreman for more than forty years. This stela likely portrays the younger Neferhotep since the style of the clothing shown on the relief, the texts inscribed on it, and its overall composition suggest a later rather than an earlier date for its creation.5

The artisans at Deir el-Medina made hundreds of commemorative stelae, many of which had similar formats that can be used to reconstruct the original appearance of this fragmentary example. It would most probably have been a round-topped stela with two registers. The upper register would have shown a god (or gods) seated before a table of offerings. The preserved lower register is dominated by the image of Neferhotep. The now-lost area to the right of the foreman likely would have had vertical columns of hieroglyphic text for a formulaic text “praising [a god’s name].”6

The stelae made at Deir el-Medina vary in in the orientation of the figures. But conventionally, rank is indicated by placement, with the most important figure on the left side of the composition, facing to the right. For example, many commemorative stelae from Dynasties 19–20 show the god(s) on the left and the worshipper, sometimes in a different register, on the right. However, there are many examples, including this fragmentary one, in which the adorant is on the left, facing right. Often the adorant is in the lower register to create a respectful distance between him or her and the deity. However, it should be understood that, although placed in a different register on the stela, the devotee is still considered to be in the presence of the god.7

Another stela of Neferhotep in the British Museum (fig. 1) shows marked similarity to the Chicago fragment. The clothing is the same, including the slight gap between the hip cloth and the tunic at the back, the shape and pleating on sleeve of the right arm, and the pleats on the left sleeve that begin just below a very rounded shoulder. On both reliefs, Neferhotep’s eye is almond shaped and defined by a heavy, long cosmetic line, and he wears a curly wig, although the line on the shoulder differs. His fingers are also strikingly alike in both examples—they are of roughly same length, have a squared off, almost paddlelike shape, and a long, curved thumb. It is possible that a necklace, like the one on the British Museum stela, would have been represented in paint on the one in Chicago.8

Life and Times of Neferhotep

The rich documentation of Deir el-Medina provides a surprising level of detail about the life of the Neferhotep portrayed on the Chicago stela. He and his wife Webkhet had no children but they brought up a boy named Paneb who fell out with the couple and even threatened them to the point that a bodyguard “watched over Neferhotep because he [Paneb] said: ‘I will kill him in the night.’”^[4] After cutting ties with Paneb, Neferhotep and his wife may have adopted a man named Hesysunebef, because they are shown together in contexts that are appropriate for a father and son. In addition, Hesysunebef named his own son and daughter after Neferhotep and Webkhet.^[5] Drama seems to have followed Neferhotep, for a text states “the enemy killed Neferhotep,” although it is not clear if the enemy was indeed Paneb or if the term refers more generally to the disturbances in Thebes during the reign of Seti II.^[6]9

Neferhotep was buried in Tomb 216 at Deir el-Medina, one of the larger tombs in the necropolis.^[7] The Chicago stela likewise is unusually large by the local standards.^[8] It is very likely that it adorned Tomb 216, and the large size of both reflect the wealth and influence Neferhotep garnered during his long career.10

Provenance

Spink and Sons, Ltd., London; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1924.11

Publication History

James K. Hoffmeier, “A Relief of a ‘Chief of the Gang’ from Deir el-Medineh at Wheaton College, Illinois,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 74 (1988): 217–20.12

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), 24, fig. 1–7.
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