9 - 15 August 2001
Issue No.546
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 9 - 15 August 2001 Issue No.546 |
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The Pharaoh's divine nourishment
An inscribed limestone relief exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum has returned home 30 years after it was smuggled out of Egypt. Nevine El-Aref attended a ceremony to mark the occasion
This summer is turning out to be a lucky season for Egypt and its heritage. Eight days after retrieving a limestone effigy of Nefertari, antiquities officials were celebrating the recovery of a 19th-dynasty relief stolen more than three decades ago from a temple in Mit Rahina, six miles south of Giza. The artefact, which is 49cm high and 31cm wide, depicts an unidentified goddess breast feeding the Pharaoh Seti I, the father of Ramses II.
Gaballa Ali Gaballa (left), Egyptian Museum Director Mamdouh El-Damaty (centre) and Mahmoud Allam (right) with the recovered relief
"It is a very important achievement for Egypt," said Egypt's consul-general Mahmoud Allam, who brought the object back to Egypt last Saturday. Allam extended his sincere appreciation to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for their great effort which, he said, would set a model of exemplary cooperation in preserving the cultural heritage of Egypt.
Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) secretary-general Gaballa Ali Gaballa told Al- Ahram Weekly: "I am overjoyed to be holding the relief in my hands. I feel that my baby has returned to me after being lost for many years."
He said the relief was originally part of a larger representation which included, as well as the goddess, a smaller figure of King Seti I, of which only the top of the head is preserved in the lower left-hand corner of the relief slab which is being returned.
The goddess is bending her head and shoulders forward; and better-preserved parallel works show she would have been offering her breast to the king, who would thus receive divine nourishment. Hieroglyphs before the face of the goddess confirm the Pharaoh's name.
The relief was owned for many years by Mrs Richard Rogers, the wife of the American composer. It was sold to another private collector on 22 May 1981 at a Sotheby's sale of "Fine Classical, Near Eastern and Egyptian antiquities." The current owner, who inherited the piece from the Sotheby's purchaser, loaned it to the Metropolitan in June 1996. The relief was placed on display at the museum's Egyptian art gallery until, in April this year, and quite by chance, Jacobus Van Dijk, a Dutch Egyptologist with a special interest and expertise in the ancient Memphis monuments, recognised the relief. On examining it, Van Dijk remembered that he had seen it before in the decorated chapel of Seti I at Memphis.
After his return to the Netherlands, he confirmed this impression by referring to the papers read at a conference held in Paris in 1986, and published in 1988 under the title Memphis et ses Nécropoles au Nouvelle Empire: Nouvelles données, nouvelles questions.
After Van Dijk had discussed his find with other colleagues, steps were taken to notify the Egyptian authorities. The museum purchased the piece from its current owner, took official possession of the relief and returned it promptly and unencumbered to Egypt.
"This case is another scene of friendship and cooperation between Egypt and the Metropolitan museum," Gaballa told the Weekly. He mentioned that, in 1978, the museum had returned to Egypt an important piece of ancient art called Talatat of Thebes after proving that it had been taken three years earlier from a storeroom in Karnak.
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