Shrine of the Overseer of Cattle Yegegi
"This small sculpture distills into its 5-inch form one half of a life-sized ancient Egyptian tomb – the mortuary chapel. The chapel, open to the living, served as a meeting place between the dead and the living. Family members, or paid attendants, would periodically visit the chapel and provide fresh offerings of food and other necessities to the spirit, or ka, of a loved one who had passed.
The exterior of our sculpture is carved and painted to represent the chapel. Typical architectural features are the projecting cavetto cornice at the top and the rounded molding just below. Three sides are painted to imitate the recessed stepped niching of earlier brick chapels and the “false doors” that allowed the ka passage into and out of the tomb. The small figure of Yegegi, a miniature ka statue, would have been the focal point of the offering ritual and a temporary habitation from which his spirit could view the offerings and visit with family and friends. The hieroglyphs surrounding the figure include a funerary spell and his name and titles. The faint outline of a bull at the lower right is part of his title “Overseer of Cattle.”
Originally the piece was probably placed inside a small structure. You can see traces of its journey to the present on its surface. The roughened area at the center front of the “roof” may be the result of the slow drip of water over the millennia. It does rain in Egypt occasionally and runoff slowly percolates down through the ground and any buried remains. The faded appearance of the lower portion of the sculpture shows the level to which it was buried in dust and sand within its ancient enclosure.
A 3D rendering of this piece is available at https://www.memphis.edu/egypt. The 3D digital image was created by Dr. Joshua Roberson, Associate Professor and Assistant Director of the Institute of Egyptian Art & Archaeology."
Patricia Podzorski – Curator of Egyptian Art, Institute of Egyptian Art & Archaeology