365 Days at the Met

February 27, 2018 Galley 126 holds more than two dozen inner and outer coffins, elaborately painted in tones of brown, orange, turquoise, white, and black (the last always used to depict eyes). It also contains shabtis (statuettes of attendant or servant figures that were placed in  tombs),  canopic jars, funeral papyri, and other objects found in  a large burial near Thebes. The objects date from ca. 1300  B.C. What stops me dead, though - af igurative rather than literal turn of phrase, obviously, but apt - is a mummy it self. Somehow I've tuned out the museum guard in the hallway saying repeatedly, "There's a mummy back there," like a carnival barker trying to attract an audience for this rather out-of-the-way gallery. So when I do see the mummy, it comes as a surprise, and maybe more, a shock. Does this really belong in an art museum, for one thing? It feels a bit out of place, though maybe it wouldn't be in a natural history museum. Or maybe it wou...

Februar y 23, 2018 Gallery 125 has many objects from an extended period of time - ca. 1000-600 B.C. My eye is drawn to four wooden funerary stelae; they are painted in vivid shades of turquoise, tan, and white that remain intact. The object I want to write about, both because it is made of gold and stands out for that reason and because it is so finely made, is a small statuette of Amun, maybe 6 inches high. Its dating is unclear; the description says it comes from the Third Intermediate Period, ca. 1070-664 B.C.  I realize that this period is longer than the U.S.A. has been in existence. The god is standing, or rather, striding, his left foot forward. His crowned head looks rather small compared with his long, slender body. He has pronounced cheekbones, a slim nose, and raised eyebrows.  The work is so delicate that you can see the braided pattern of his beard. He is nude to the waist, and his nipples and navel are both clearly depicted. He wears a very finely ple...

February 22, 2018 Gallery 124 contains relics from the post-Amarna period (roughly 1300-1200 B.C., I think) - the dynasties of Ramesses II (as the Met spells it) and his successors. The object I want to write about is one I wouldn't understand without the caption. As the museum describes it, It's a "fragmentary" statue of a lion, maybe three feet high,  sitting on its haunches and grasping something (like the lion's mouth, a missing element) between its paws. The caption explains that the lion has the head of a captive in its mouth. It goes on to say that the captive's hands are manacled, though I'm not sure I see this. The lion's shoulders bear cartouches of Ramesses II, while an inscription on the skirt of the captive identifies him as a prince of Kush (Ethiopia?). The inscription reads what I take to be the captive's plea: "The wretched Chief says (Give)!to Kush the breath (of life)."    If the face of the captive were still...

February 19, 2018 This galley (123) spans many centuries and dynasties. Its objecta range from massive sculptures to small statuettes to reliefs covered with hieroglyphs to an incredibly well preserved, highly colored papyrus scroll. I feel like I'm taking the easy way out by writing about something relatively straightforward, this six-inch long head of what I take to be a sheep but is, according to the caption, an antelope. (What do I know?) But it's irresistible.  It's sculpted of a stone called greywackle; its eyes are inlaid with alabaster and agate. It dates from Dynasty 27, ca. 525-404 B.C., which is in itself a long time span for a dynasty, it seems to me. The muzzle is really wonderful, with its flattened nose and nostrils and cleft upper lip and well-modeled  cheekbones and eye sockets. I can't decide whether the sheep/antelope looks wise or as stupid as we kind of expect these animals to be.  It really does look lke it's smiling.  Happy but stupi...

February 14, 2018 What immediately captures my eye in this study gallery (122) is this small fragment (maybe 5 inches square) depicting  the head of a man in profile. He certainly doesn't look like conventional representations of Egyptians, even those of the Amarna period.  His face is round, his nose curved, his lips full. He looks to me as if he came from a Black African locale (or at least Nubia).    I may have viewed figures with  curled wigs or hairdos of the type he is wearing (its shape reminds me of the toques I've been seeing all over New York this cold winter), but I don't thnk I've previously see images with a similar hoop earring; this one appears to go right through his ear. If he is indeed a foreigner, how did he come to be in Egypt, and what did he do there? I've noticed a depiction of a battle scene; maybe he was taken captive (shades of Amonasro!) . But he doesn't look unhappy or as if he's suffering. Is that  a ...

February 13, 2018 Gallery 121 contains objects from the Amarna period (ca. 1350-1335 B.C.), and while I cetainly would not be able to identify all of them as having that provenance, the graceful limbs, rounded chins, and elongated fingers are highly distinctive. My hands-down favorite is a fragment of a delicately painted relief, about 14 inches long and 9 or 10 inches high. It shows a young woman and a young girl. The older figure's head is in profile, while her body faces us, calling attention to her high, rounded breasts. Her left arm is extended protectively and affectionately around the shoulder of the young girl. While the gaze of the older figure is outward, the young girl looks up at the older one. Her right arm is raised, but I can't tell whether she's holding the older one by the elbow or her hand is simply raised in a lively gesture, as if the sculptor had captured the pair when the younger one was animatedly telling the older one about something that...

February 12, 2018 My heart sinks at first when I walk into Study Galley 120. On my left is a glassed-in display of five shelves, each 12 feet or so long, with dull-looking fragments of unpainted pottery. Additional potsherds are mounted above the shelves and in a case that directly faces me. On the right is a multi-shelved case with beads and polychrome glass fragments painted with the wavy pattern I described in an earlier entry. What in the world is new or interesting enough to write about? But I look more closely, and I notice some small faience pendants and amulets-- and the molds that were used to make them. I clearly discern the forms of an upright hippo (no mistaking this for a monkey!) and of the dwarf god of fertility, Bes. (Lots of amulets about fertility, I realize.) What's most interesting, though, is that the pottery fragments on the left have inscriptions, and placards beside them tell what the inscriptions say. They tell us what the contents of the co...

February 9, 2018 I think I was wrong in identifying the downward-curving arcs on the which the circular mirrors I mentioned yesterday are mounted as evoking a cow's (or cow-goddess's) horns. The arc seems to be a standard design element for these mirrors, but I don't know what it signifies. Also,  I checked online, and I still don't know how to read the middle symbol on Thutmose's cartouche. So much I don't know.... But in Gallery 119, I'm wowed by the craftsmanship of those artisans from ca. 1400 B.C. This is manifested in the elaborate pleated cloak (made of linen?) on a small statue of Amenhotep III sculpted in serpentine as well as in wonderfully realistic heads of a hippo and a cow (yes, Hathor), sculpted in alabaster and diorite, respectively. A small ivory carving of a hunting dog, about 7 inches long, shows the hound runnng in hot pursuit of its prey; its mouth can be opened with a thong to reveal prominent teeth. (Actually, I expected f...

February 8, 2018 Lots of gold jewelry and other gold objects in Gallery 118, which contains finds from the burials of three minor wives of Thutmose III, along with alabaster, silver, and diorite drinking cups and cosmetics containers and the wives' canopic jars. The wives were named Maruta, Manhara, and Manuwai, as we know from their canopic jars, and were of foreign origin; their marriages sealed alliances between Egypt and the peoples they came from. (I started to write "from which they came'" -- no ending sentences on a preposition having been drummed into me -- and then decided that was way too formal-sounding.)  I wonder what that must have been like - how long it took them to learn the language of Egypt and whether there was anyone they could talk to before then, how often they slept with Thutmose, what happened to their children, whether they were friendly or rivalrous (or both) with each other. The gold objects include not only bracelets and collars ...

February 6, 2018 This study gllery (117) contains hundreds, if not thousands, of objects of stone, wood, ceramic, metal, reeds, alabaster, you name it, found in burials from about 1500 B.C. I like a limestone statue of a family grouping. It shows a seated man and woman, nude to the hips (except that she wears a wide necklace or maybe a breastplate). They face   outward, and their arms circle each other's waists. The woman's gaze is so intense that it takes me a while to notice the small child seated between them; his head comes up to their knees. Other things I note: a tiny (2 inch high) clay (?) figure of a woman carrying what appears to be a baby wrapped, rebozo-style, in a cloak on her back, and another small figure, this one of faience (?), of a standing figure (Bes again?) clutching a barrel.  I also like some small metal cutout figures of horned animals and a water bird.  What I would like to take home with me, though, is a delicate amphora-shaped vessel, ...

February 5, 2018 This room (gallery 116) contains many objects from the tomb of Senenmut, Hatshepsut's highest-ranking courtier, and of his parents. One is the large stone sarcophagus of Senenmut himself. It's perhaps 9 feet long and 3 1/2 feet high and, unusually, oval-shaped. Remarkably, it was pieced together from 1000 fragments found in the tomb and in the valley below. I wonder if this is the world's largest - or oldest, anyway- 3D jigsaw puzzle. I can't imagine the patience and the painstakingness it took to put it back together again. Not a job I could undertake, I think. Today's objects are three small sandals, an apparent pair and one extra, shown side by side. I have seen many children's sandals in earlier visits, but these strike me with unaccountable emotional force. The sandals are like flipflops, with a strap that runs over  the foot and a thong that separates the big toe from the others. The pair is made of various plant materials (acco...

February 1, 2018 Yes, women are depicted wearing beards, as the many statues of Hatshepsut in Gallery 115 prove. The high-ceilinged gallery provides an appropriate display space for the six monumental pink granite sculptures and many smaller ones (one in the form of a sphinx) that, along with a number of busts, arae shown in the room.  But before I reach the gallery, I make note of two things. First, as many times as I have visited the museum, I have never noticed in the Great Hall two immense sculptures, one of a pharaoh and one of Athena  (the latter found at Pergamon). How is it possible that I have walked past these time and again without seeing them, en route to doing something else- checking my coat, heading to a particular show (or now, a particular room)? It is humbling. Second, I pass a small wooden shrine that was found in a tomb. The caption notes that the shrine commemorates the death and reaurrection of Osiris. It's a reminder that the idea of re...