Tomb Relief (Primary Title)
Refief from Tomb of Methethy (Primary Title)
Unknown (Artist)
The large figure is a nobleman who gives orders to three servants carrying papyrus scrolls while a fourth servant removes a necklace of gold beads from a box. (The scene follows the conventions of Egyptian art in which the most important figures, whether gods or humans, are depicted as larger than less important ones, such as servants.) This relief is probably from the tomb of a man named Methethy in the cemetery at Saqqara.
The stone was carved in raised relief, a technique in which the sculptor carves away the background from the figures so that the figures project. Raised relief was most commonly used inside buildings; like most Egyptian sculpture, raised reliefs were brightly painted.
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