http://collections.mfa.org/collections/315163/objects/rdfENN.Age of Amarnahttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/808230/resize%3Aformat%3Dfullhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/796020/resize%3Aformat%3DfullAmphora with applied decoration and lid1390–1327 B.C.Pottery, Nile silt wareIn the late Eighteenth Dynasty a new type of painted pottery was introduced, characterized by the use of cobalt blue. Because many examples have been found at the residences of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten at Thebes and el-Amarna, it is sometimes known as palace ware. This jar is particularly large and ornate with painted, incised, and applied decoration. The volute handles, resembling those on later Greek vases, are unusual in Egyptian art and may be attributed to foreign influence. The jar has a distinct front and back and was probably intended primarily for display in a niche, although it also could have served as a wine jar on festive occasions. The lid is crowned with a recumbent calf while grapes hang below the rim. On the vessel's shoulder, a newborn ibex struggles to rise, its head raised up proudly to confront the viewer. Implicit in the young animals is the message of rejuvenation and rebirth.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/46199/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/808230/resize%3Aformat%3DfullFragment of a boundary stele with Nefertiti and two princesses1349–1336 B.C.LimestoneOne of many stele that marked the perimeter of Akhetaten, this frament shows Nefertiti worshipping the Aten, followed by her two eldest daughters. Both daughters hold sistra.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/46187/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/901943/resize%3Aformat%3DfullFragment of a column drum featuring the royal family worshipping1353–1336 B.C.LimestoneLimestone fragment showing the common scene of the royal family worshipping the Aten. The family procession, consisting of Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Meretaten, would have been shown twice around the column drum.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/46200/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/1816497/resize%3Aformat%3DfullHead of Amenhotep III1390–1352 B.C.QuartziteEgypt in the reign of Amenhotep III was at the pinnacle of wealth and splendor, and the king was able to carry out a building program of unparalleled breadth and scope. Temples were erected up and down the Nile according to an organized and well thought-out plan, and these buildings were populated with thousands of statues of the king, large and small, in a variety of materials. This head, from a complete standing figure, is very fine and of the choicest material - quartzite - the stone the Egyptians called "wondrous."Even though the sculpture is uninscribed, there is no mistaking its identity, for it captures Amenhotep III's exotic features to perfection. He has long, narrow, almond-shaped eyes, their length extended by makeup lines, paralleled by the equally long, sweeping curves of his cosmetically enhanced eyebrows. His mouth is wide and voluptuous, with thick lips (the upper lip thicker than the lower). Not a line or blemish disturbs the Buddha-like serenity of his expression; there is not the slightest tension. When complete, the statue would have stood at least 182.9 centimeters tall (six feet), excluding the base. The tall crown would have had a knob at the top, as on the triad of Menkaura, Hathor, and the Hare nome. Enough remains to show that the king wore the long, plaited beard of a god, with a turned-up end. In all probability this was an Osiride statue, showing the king standing, arms crossed, feet together, in the same mummiform pose as Mentuhotep III as Osiris. To the ancient Egyptians, there was nothing inherently funereal about this pose; rather, it contained the promise of resurrection, for in a moment, the mummy would emerge from his wrappings, reborn, no longer motionless but free to move about as he desired. This type of statue was particularly appropriate for kings' funerary temples, their "mansions of millions of years," and indeed fragments of similar statues have been found at Amenhotep III's funerary temple at Kom el-Hetan, Thebes, where quartzite was lavishly employed.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/46184/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/795999/resize%3Aformat%3DfullHead of King Tutankhamen1336–1327 B.C.SandstoneIn 1922, Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. The smallest of the royal tombs, it was the only one that preserved its fabulous treasures virtually intact, the king's mummy resting undisturbed in its four coffins and four shrines nested one inside the other. Despite the unprecedented media coverage lavished on this sensational discovery, Tutankhamen remains a mysterious figure. He was probably born at el-Amarna, the new capital city built by Akhenaten. Succeeding to the throne as a boy of nine or ten years of age, Tutankhamen was taken in hand by the traditionalist clergy and made to repudiate Akhenaten's religious reforms. He abandoned el-Amarna, reopened the other temples, and showered attention on the old gods. He received little thanks for his piety, however, for later rulers continued to associate him with the heretic Akhenaten. His memory was suppressed, and his statues were appropriated by other rulers, notably Horemheb. When he was remembered at all, it was as a minor ruler. No wonder his tomb treasures caused such a sensation. So familiar are the "boy king's" gentle features now, that one immediately recognizes a sculpture as his even if it had been usurped by a later ruler or, as here, lacks an inscription. Traces of paint show that the nemes headdress was striped alternately blue and yellow as on the famous gold mask from his tomb.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/46183/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/754941/resize%3Aformat%3DfullHead of Queen Tiye1390–1352 B.C.PeridotiteBy the second year of his reign, Amenhotep III was married to his "great royal wife," Queen Tiye. We know more about Tiye than we do about any other Eighteenth-Dynasty queen with the exception of Hatshepsut who ruled as pharaoh. The names of Tiye's parents, both commoners, were proclaimed far and wide on a series of large commemorative scarabs and circulated throughout the empire - an unheard-of practice. No previous queen figured so prominently in her husband's lifetime. Just as many images of Amenhotep III show him as a god, this head of Queen Tiye shows her as a goddess. The attributes of the goddess Hathor - cow horns and sun disks - on her headdress emphasize her role as the king's divine, as well as earthly, partner. She even has the king's facial features. In contrast, the large enveloping wig, encircled by a floral wreath and a band of rosettes, is not a conventional goddess's hairdo but that of a contemporary lady of fashion. The combination of divine and queenly attributes intentionally blurs the lines between deity and mortal ruler.The head was acquired in the Sudan and is carved of Sudanese stone. It very likely comes from Amenhotep III's temple to his queen at Sedeinga in northern Sudan, where Tiye was worshipped as a form of Hathor. Her memory survives there today in the name of the neighboring village, which is locally known as Adey, from Hut Tiye, "the mansion of Tiye." The temple at Sedeinga was the pendant to Amenhotep III's own, larger temple at Soleb, about 14.5 kilometers (9 miles) to the south. Indeed, the emphasis on the queen's role as the king's divine female counterpart provided the model for Nefertiti in the reign of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) and anticipated the divine queens of the Ptolemaic Dynasty.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/46188/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/755001/resize%3Aformat%3DfullKneeling Amenhotep III as the god Neferhotep1390–1352 B.C.Glazed steatiteThere is more to this charming statuette of Amenhotep III than meets the eye. The king is wide-eyed, innocent-looking, and decidedly chubby, his bare chest revealing his baby fat. But despite his youthful appearance, Amenhotep III was no child when this statue was created, for it is one of a number of closely related statuettes made in celebration of the king's thirty-year jubilee. Thirty years symbolized a generation, and during the celebration of the jubilee, the king was born again. Amenhotep III would have been at least in his forties at the time, but he appears as a child in token of his spiritual rebirth. The inscription on the back of the statuette calls Amenhotep III, "the son of Isis, who dwells in Edfu," so presumably the figure was placed in the temple of Edfu as an offering to Isis. True to his name, the king kneels to present an offering, now lost, to his mother.The statuette's distinctive headdress - a round curly wig with uraeus, surmounted by the Double Crown of Upper and Lower Egypt - identifies the ruler with the child god Neferhotep. The crowns were meant to confer stability, while implicit in any child god is the prospect of a new beginning full of promise. The statuette is thus a visual pun, and even the color added to its symbolism. Originally, the figure was glazed a lustrous blue-green, now almost entirely worn away. In ancient Egypt as today, to be green meant to be young; in ancient Egyptian, the words for "green" and "to be young," renput and renpy, had the same root. Additional meaning is provided by the word for glazed material, tjehenet, "dazzling, luminous," which was also applied to sunlight, and by extension, to gold. In this image of himself as the child god Neferhotep, Amenhotep III - who liked to call himself the "dazzling sun-disk of all lands" - found the perfect form of self-expression.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/46185/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/593658/resize%3Aformat%3DfullPiriform jar1349–1336 B.C.PotteryJar with pointed bottom and wide flaring mouth. Red-brown ware painted in 2 zones; black and red lines, blue washes.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/147953/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/743686/resize%3Aformat%3DfullRelief of Akhenaten as a sphinx1349–1336 B.C.LimestoneAlthough Akhenaten's religious reforms purged Egyptian art of many of its most familiar manifestations, the king remained fond of the sphinx and often had himself depicted as that fantastic creature - part man, part lion. In Old Kingdom times, the Great Sphinx at Giza probably stood for the king presenting offerings to the sun god, while in the Eighteenth Dynasty the mighty monument was reinterpreted as the sun god Horemakhet, or Horus in the Horizon. Its impeccable solar credentials therefore made the sphinx an appropriate image for Akhenaten at el-Amarna, the city he called Akhetaten, "Horizon of the Sun Disk."This relief was one of a pair flanking a temple doorway. The sphinx on it rests on a plinth, suggesting that it represents a statue. A pair of such reliefs flanking the doorway of a small temple would have evoked the grand avenues of sphinxes that traditionally led up to the entrance pylons of larger Egyptian sanctuaries. Here the sphinx is equipped with human arms and hands to enable him to make offerings to his god, the sun disk, Aten, who appears at the upper left. He wears the uraeus of kingship while behind him (to the left) are two cartouches containing his lengthy official name. The sun's life-giving rays end in so many hands, some holding ankh-signs. Below are three offering stands. To the right, Akhenaten as sphinx raises one hand in adoration while in the other he holds a neb sign, a basket signifying lordship, holding Aten's cartouches. These same cartouches appear a third time in the upper right where they are joined with the cartouches of Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti, who is thus present in name if not in image. The rest of the inscription describes the "great, living Aten" as "dwelling in the Sunshade temple [called] Creator of the Horizon [which is] in Akhetaten." The temple named here, yet to be located, must be the one for which this block was carved. Akhenaten's religious revolution was accompanied by a change in the way pharaoh was depicted, showing a marked departure from the idealized images favored by his predecessors. Even though the king's face has been sadly hacked away, one can still discern his characteristic slanted eyes, long nose,hollow cheeks, drooping lower lip, and pendulous chin.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/46197/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/773275/resize%3Aformat%3DfullRiver scene with royal barges and tow boats1349–1336 B.C.Painted Limestonehttp://collections.mfa.org/objects/45954/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/773275/resize%3Aformat%3DfullRiver scene with royal barges and tow boats1349–1336 B.C.Painted limestonehttp://collections.mfa.org/objects/46198/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/1664996/resize%3Aformat%3DfullTalatat: column with ducks1353–1336 B.C.LimestoneTalatat depicting an Amarna kiosk, in which ducks are suspended by their tails from the top of a column supporting the kiosk.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/46206/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/901940/resize%3Aformat%3DfullTalatat: force-feeding a cow1349–1336 B.C.LimestoneLimestone talatat depicting two servants force-feeding a cow.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/164972/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/790207/resize%3Aformat%3DfullTalatat: palace scene featuring the window of appearances1349–1336 B.C.LimestoneLimestone talatat showing the Window of Appearances, a pillared portico, and an entrance gate. With mount.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/46202/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/901916/resize%3Aformat%3DfullTalatat: princess offering to the Aten1353–1336 B.C.LimestoneHeader from a talatat carved in relief with the head of a princess holding a cone of scented fat. Alterations to the wig suggest that the relief originally depicted Queen Kiya but was changed to Princess Meretaten.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/46203/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/771535/resize%3Aformat%3DfullTalatat: River scene with royal barges and tow boats1353–1336 B.C.LimestoneLimestone talatat depicting two towboats, each carrying a kiosk that contains a sphinx trampling enemies.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/164622/rdfhttp://collections.mfa.org/internal/media/dispatcher/901941/resize%3Aformat%3DfullTalatat: sanctuary of the Great Temple1349–1336 B.C.LimestoneLimestone talatat representing the Great Aten Temple at Amarna. The structure is identified as the Great Temple based on the profuse depiction of altars and food offerings.http://collections.mfa.org/objects/46195/rdf