Triangular Loaf of Bread

"One of my favorite artifacts in the Egyptian collection is this loaf of bread. This little object never ceases to reignite my sense of wonder. For one thing, it was baked over 4,000 years ago. That, in and of itself, is worthy of respect. Yet it is simply bread, nothing more commonplace in ancient or modern times. Its shape and composition (including chaff and even grains of sand) are, however, not common to us. It is both familiar and alien.

Its “otherness” is made even more clear by how it was found. The bread is one of perhaps two-dozen loaves that were buried before the buildings of the funerary complex of king Mentuhotep were begun. These foundation deposits, along with the remains of a cow, were probably offerings intended for the benefit of the king and the gods. They, along with other remains, were excavated a century ago by an American expedition from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York). Some were kept in Egypt, while others were granted to the museum by the Egyptian Government. This loaf was traded between museums and it came to Memphis in the 1970s.

Think of the hands that have touched this bread: the baker, the priests, the archaeologists. Wonderful, indeed!"

Patricia Podzorski – Curator of Egyptian Art, Institute of Egyptian Art & Archaeology