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Cat. 1 Stela of Tjenti and Nefret, Old Kingdom Cat. 2 Tomb Wall Fragment Depicting Donkeys, Old Kingdom Cat. 3 Tomb Wall Fragment Depicting Offering Bearers and Butchers, Old Kingdom Cats. 4–5 Side Panels from the Chapel of Merettetiiyet, First Intermediate Period Cat. 6 Relief Fragment Depicting Ipi and Fowling in the Marshes, First Intermediate Period Cat. 7 Stela of Amenemhat and Hemet, Middle Kingdom Cat. 8 Stela of Amenemhat and Yatu, Middle Kingdom Cat. 9 Lintel Fragment Depicting Iniuia and Iuy Worshiping Deities, New Kingdom Cat. 10 Stela Depicting the Funeral of Ramose, New Kingdom Cat. 11 Fragment of a Stela of Neferhotep, New Kingdom About Relief Plaques Cat. 12 Relief Depicting a God, Ptolemaic Period Cat. 13 Plaque Depicting a Queen or Goddess, Ptolemaic Period Cat. 14 Plaque Depicting a Quail Chick, Ptolemaic Period Cat. 15 Plaque Depicting a Ram, Ptolemaic Period Cat. 16 Double-Sided Plaque Depicting a Lion and Birds, Ptolemaic Period

About Relief Plaques

History and Function

About two thousand small plaques carved on one or both sides with images of deities, kings and queens, animals, and (rarely) priests are known from ancient Egypt.[1] These plaques share many features: most are made of limestone, most are unfinished and unpainted, and most are carved in raised relief. Only rarely do they represent more than the head and shoulders of any human or divine being, and nearly all the subjects face right.[2] Most of the plaques that represent a woman show her wearing a vulture headdress. There is so much repetition in their subject matter that C. C. Edgar referred to their sculptors as “helplessly conservative,” and suggested that they “took pride in their own unprogressiveness.”[3]1

For many years, there has been debate about whether these plaques were surfaces upon which artists practiced their techniques and designs in preparation for carving temple reliefs; if they were an element in the instruction of artisans; or whether they had a religious function as ex-votos that were dedicated to the gods.[4] Those who prefer to understand them as artists’ models argue that, because many are unfinished, they were made to demonstrate the steps taken to complete a relief.[5] Although the discussion continues today, some scholars have reached a middle ground, believing that they may have fulfilled all of these roles.[6]2

Dates

There are almost no examples of these plaques that predate Dynasty 26 (664 BCE), raising the questions of why they appeared at that time and why they continued to be made in the Ptolemaic Period in such significant numbers.[7] It has been suggested that they reflect a “major change in the way in which practical knowledge was passed on” among artists, from the earlier model of one-on-one master-to-apprentice training to a newer approach in which larger groups of students worked with a master artisan.[8] The plaques would thus represent the students’ practice pieces. It has also been suggested that there is a political aspect to the objects that further explains their repetitive nature. With the influx of foreigners and foreign rule in the Nile Valley, the carvings may have served the desire to preserve Egyptian traditions and to create a common artistic ideal that represented the indigenous culture.[9]3

The uniform style of the plaques makes it difficult to assign them more precise dates or even trace developments in their style.[10] Most examples with a stated provenance are from Lower (northern) Egypt, although some have been discovered at Edfu, Dendera, and elsewhere in the south.[11]4

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Notes

  1. Nadja Tomoum, The Sculptors’ Models of the Late and Ptolemaic Periods: A Study of the Type and Function of a Group of Ancient Egyptian Artefacts (Cairo: National Center for Documentation of Cultural and National Heritage; Supreme Council of Antiquities, 2005), 56. For the estimated number of examples, see ibid., 10.
  2. A few of these plaques are made of wood, hard stone, or plaster. See Tomoum, Sculptors’ Models, 3. For an exception to the right-facing convention, see cat. 12.
  3. C. C. Edgar, Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, nos. 33301–33506, Sculptors’ Studies and Unfinished Works (Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut Française d’Archéologie Orientale, 1906), ii. Tomoum has related the general uniformity of style and themes of the plaques to “the stagnation in artistic development” seen in contemporary architecture. Tomoum, Sculptors’ Models, 160.
  4. For a summary of the arguments, see Tomoum, Sculptors’ Models, 10–19.
  5. Edgar, Sculptors’ Studies, 10–16; Eric Young, “Sculptors’ Models or Votives? In Defense of a Scholarly Tradition,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 22, no. 7 (March 1964): 247–56. Tomoum notes that “it seems appropriate to refrain completely from using the termini votive offering, ritual offering, or ex voto.” She prefers the terms “sculptors’ models” or “practice pieces.” Tomoun, Sculptors’ Models, 29–30.
  6. Paul Edmund Stanwick, Portraits of the Ptolemies: Greek Kings as Egyptian Pharaohs (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), 90–93. For an opinion based on some examples with dedication inscriptions, see Bernard V. Bothmer, Herman De Meulenaere, and Hans Wolfgang Müller, comps., Egyptian Sculpture of the Late Period, 700 B.C. to A.D. 100, exh. cat. (Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, 1960), 85.
  7. A few comparable plaques date to the Amarna Period (about 1352–1336 BCE). See Dorothea Arnold, The Royal Women of Amarna: Images of Beauty from Ancient Egypt, with contributions by James P. Allen and L. Green, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996), 67, fig. 62; 90, fig. 81; 111, fig. 108.
  8. Tomoum, Sculptors’ Models, 160–61. Edgar discusses the “stock subjects learned by rote.” Edgar, Sculptors’ Studies, ii.
  9. Tomoum, Sculptors’ Models, 160–61.
  10. Robert S. Bianchi distinguishes Saite examples from Ptolemaic ones. Robert S. Bianchi, “Ex-Votos of Dynasty XXVI,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 35 (1979): 15–22.
  11. Tomoum, Sculptors’ Models, 20–22.

How to Cite

Emily Teeter, “About Relief Plaques,” in Ancient Egyptian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago by Emily Teeter and Ashley F. Arico, ed. Ashley F. Arico (Art Institute of Chicago, 2025), https://doi.org/10.53269/9780865593213/08.

© 2025 by The Art Institute of Chicago. This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

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