A Lintel Fragment from the Meniset Temple of Amenhotep I and Ahmose Nefertari at Thebes

Introduction

The temple of Amenhotep I and Ahmose Nefertari, just south of Dra Abu el-Naga, is a little understood structure. First examined by Wilhelm Spiegelberg in 1896 and then excavated in 1898, it was originally thought to be two separate structures. ¹ Howard Carter later identified it as a single temple with a north/south axis. ² The function of the temple is still unclear, though it seems likely to be the mortuary temple of Amenhotep I and connected to a burial in Dra Abu el-Naga that may also belong to Amenhotep I. ³ Its name Meniset and association with Amenhotep I and Ahmose Nefertari comes from inscribed votive objects and reliefs from the temple that bear their names. ⁴ The decorative program of the temple is fragmentary, but at least one scene of a Sed festival of Amenhotep I is known through fragments of a door lintel found by Spiegelberg. These fragments have largely been lost, and were solely documented through a series of line drawings and photographs of squeezes made by Spiegelberg, as well as a few fragments in the Louvre, the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung in Berlin, and in the collections of Strasbourg University. ⁵ A fragment now in the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia (A303) is suggested to belong to the same lintel and confirms the composition of the Sed festival scene.

The relief scene

On the right side of the relief is the figure of a bearded god with a hieroglyphic label naming the city of Nubt, which usually refers to either one of the sites of Kom Ombo or Naqada (fig. 1). The placement of the city name marks the god as the patron deity of this city. He holds in his hand the hieroglyphic sign nb, which contains the signs ʽnẖ and wȝs, forming part of an inscription which continues under the god’s hands and ends with a cartouche with the prenomen of Amenhotep I. It reads as follows:

dỉ.f nb ʽnẖ wȝs n ḏsr-kȝ-rʽ

‘He gives all life and dominion to Djeser-Ka-Re’

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Fig. 1.

a) Lintel fragment of Amenhotep I, Barnes Foundation (A303) (produced with permission of the Barnes Foundation) b) Digitally inked drawing of the fragment (drawing: C. Walsh).

To the left of this inscription are three festival hieroglyphs, of which the top and bottom signs name the Sed festival. On the far left is a large, notched measuring rod, which continues below and above this scene (fig. 1) Traces of other elements of the scene include a sky motif that ran above and a small shrine behind the god (fig. 1).

Tracing the fragment to the Meniset temple

The scene on the Barnes relief bares similarity to the series of relief fragments discovered by Spiegelberg during his initial excavation of the Meniset temple. ⁶ Spiegelberg found the fragments in the southern part of the temple and documented them through a series of squeezes and line drawings which he published in the initial report. Their exact findspots are unclear, as there were no detailed plans or photography of the fragments in situ. ⁷ One of the squeezes almost exactly matches the Barnes relief, with an image of the city Nubt’s patron deity giving offerings to Amenhotep I (fig. 2). There are direct correlations in the damage visible in both the squeeze and the Barnes relief – the left armpit of the god, two holes between the god and the cartouche, a hole under the ear, damage along the cartouche lines, and the shape of the bottom edge of the relief. The Barnes relief has additional elements of the scene on the left side, with the festival signs and part of the measuring rod (fig. 1). This is likely due to the limitations of the dimensions of the paper Spiegelberg used in making the squeeze, which did not cover the entire fragment. The squeeze records portions that are now missing from the Barnes fragment, including most of the shrine, more of the sky motif, and parts of the feet of the god, cartouche, shrine base, and baseline in the register above (fig. 2). These squeeze portions document the original topmost and rightmost edges of the Barnes fragment.

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Fig. 2.

Squeeze of the fragment found by Spiegelberg at the Meniset temple (Spiegelberg, Zwei Beiträge zur Geschichte und Topographie der Thebanischen Necropolis, pl. III no. 4).

These sections of the relief must have been removed some time after Spiegelberg made the squeeze. Visible cut and chisel marks on the left, right, and top edges indicate that it was cut into its current square shape, with only the bottom edge, and perhaps the top left break, being ancient damage. Initial test marks for this recutting are suggested on the top right corner edge (fig. 1). Because of the construction of the wooden frame, it was not possible to remove the backing to examine the reverse. However, x-radiography was able to provide an image of the back surface (fig. 3). It shows a large percussion mark on the left side and a series of smaller percussion and chisel marks across the back surface. This damage could be the result of additional dressing of the fragment or a result of the removal of the fragment from the site. The x-radiography also revealed that the upper portion of the relief had been broken into at least three pieces. This damage could be due to a fall or perhaps a result of the recutting and/or thinning. This was repaired using an adhesive and fill, which appeared as a green/yellow fluorescence under UV light.

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Fig. 3.

X-Radiograph of the relief (image: M. Little).

Reconstructing the Sed doorway

Kurt Sethe used Spiegelberg’s squeezes and drawings to reconstruct a Sed festival scene from a lintel, similar to those of Amenemhat I, Senwosret III, and Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep (fig. 4). ⁸ It depicts a mirrored image of Amenhotep I enthroned in a festival hall and wearing the crowns of Lower Egypt (on the right) and Upper Egypt (on the left). Above, a winged sun disk surmounts the scene. Horus of Behdet and Seth of Nubt, in the form of anthropomorphic heraldic standards, present the king with measuring rods, representing continuing years of his reign. Behind them are identical vertical columns of text framed between two measuring roads, which state ‘Recitation: I have given to you all [life] and…inasmuch as I have established your annals….’. ⁹ Framed between the last measuring rod and a wȝs scepter delineating the edge of the scene, are three registers with images of city gods standing in front of shrines and presenting offerings to the king. These registers likely ran down the side of the doorjambs in the same way as the doorways of Senwosret III and Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep. ¹⁰

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Fig. 4.

Reconstruction of the lintel fragments by Kurt Sethe (Sethe, NAWG 21, 33).

In reviewing Sethe’s reconstruction, Herbert Winlock proposed that the fragments came from not one, but two scenes. He argued that Sethe’s arrangements of the squeezes led to physical overlaps in the fragments and that some of the squeezes had been incorrectly reversed. ¹¹ Sethe disputed Winlock’s reconstruction, insisting that his reconstruction was correct. ¹² The Barnes and Louvre reliefs prove that Sethe’s reconstruction was correct. ¹³ The Barnes fragment can be inserted as being part of the bottom right corner of the lintel, while the Louvre fragment can be inserted on the top left corner (fig. 5). Of the other surviving fragments, Charles Cornell Van Siclen III inserted the Strasbourg fragments of the hands of Amenhotep I and parts of the Horus falcon on the right side of the relief. ¹⁴ The Berlin fragment depicts part of a shrine and a god giving offerings facing to the right and can be inserted either on the left middle register of the lintel or on the left doorjamb. ¹⁵

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Fig. 5.

Relief fragment from the Sed lintel, The Louvre (B 58/E 11278) (© 2021 Musée du Louvre, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Christian Décamps).

The original placement of the doorway is difficult to pinpoint, given the lack of context documentation in the southern part of the temple. Van Siclen III suggested that it likely came from a doorway on the main north/south axis, as stone features seemed confined to key features in the inner parts of the largely mudbrick temple (figs 6, 7). ¹⁶ The complete lintel dimensions are 1.75 by 3.65 m, which suggests it surmounted a doorway of around 1.75 m. ¹⁷ This roughly fits the dimensions of the doorway between the hypostyle hall and the peristyle courtyard. The placement facing north, into the courtyard, would have made it highly visible.

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Fig. 6.

Speculative reconstruction of the entire Sed festival doorway with possible placement of the Barnes fragment (based after Van Siclen III, Serapis 6, by permission of the Editors of Serapis).

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Fig. 7.

Reconstructed plan of the Meniset temple with the suggested placement of the doorway marked in red (based after Van Siclen III, Serapis 6, by permission of the Editors of Serapis, with additions from Fisher’s plan, courtesy of the Penn Museum, image nos 143166–67).

Provenance of the fragment

Spiegelberg makes no mention of the removal of the reliefs in his report. They were likely reburied at the site, perhaps being too large and cumbersome to initially move. The subsequent excavation of the temple by Georg Möller in 1911 was not published in full, so it is unclear how many of the fragments were still there. ¹⁸ Two small relief fragments from the temple, only one of which was from the lintel, were given by Möller to the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung that year. ¹⁹ Unfortunately, the Berlin lintel fragment is now missing and was likely destroyed in the Second World War. ²⁰ Spiegelberg also visited the site in 1911 and appears to have brought back the small lintel fragments now in Strasbourg. ²¹ Other excavations and clearances of the temple by Howard Carter (1914) and Clarence Fisher (1921) make no mention of the lintel fragments. ²²

The temple was probably looted in the immediate period after Spiegelberg’s excavations, as some of the festival reliefs appeared on the antiquities market in Cairo. In a December 1896 letter to his friend and colleague, Percy Newberry, Spiegelberg wrote that the temple seemed to already be attracting robbers. ²³ In addition, Sethe noted that Spiegelberg had mentioned seeing two of the festival reliefs in the collection of the well-known Cairo antiquities dealer Maurice Nahman in 1911. ²⁴ One of these was likely the Louvre fragment, which was purchased from Nahman in 1912. ²⁵ The other fragment could possibly have been the Barnes relief, or another, as yet unknown fragment. However, both the Louvre and Barnes fragments exhibit similar recutting and reworking. This might suggest that Nahman was responsible for the modifications, perhaps to more easily frame the fragments for display.

It is unclear how Albert Barnes acquired the relief. He purchased the majority of the Egyptian objects in his collection from a Greek dealer named Georges Manolakos in Paris, December 1923. ²⁶ The purchase list from this sale, written in Barnes’s handwriting, details a number of Egyptian objects but only two reliefs. One is mentioned as being polychrome and the other as being a ‘primitive’ bas relief. Since this relief has no trace of paint, it cannot be the first one, and the well-executed carving does not correlate with the description of ‘primitive’. However, this description could have been Barnes’ opinion or related to the concept of ‘primitivism’ in which he framed much of the ancient and ethnographic art in his collection. Still, other candidates in the collection may fit this description better, such as an Old Kingdom door lintel belonging to a man named Iti, with an inscription carved in raised relief. ²⁷ If this is the case, the Amenhotep I relief may have been acquired through an unknown dealer or, perhaps, an undocumented purchase from Manolakos.

Research on this relief is ongoing, and through continued technical and archival research of the object, more of its provenance may be pieced together. Continued examination of the Barnes Foundation’s archives may clarify from whom Barnes purchased this relief, and if the object can be traced back to Nahman in Cairo. Further examination of the unpublished notes of Clarence Fisher’s 1921 clearance of the Meniset temple at Penn Museum may also help to reveal more about the state of the temple after the previous excavations and narrow the timeframe for the removal of the lintel fragments.