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Material : Sandstone
Acquisition : Rogers Fund (1908)
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Ancient Egypt
Sculpture
Area related
Rizaqat (Egypte)
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The burial chamber of Sobekmose, a treasury official under Amenhotep III, is from Rizaqat in Upper Egypt. Decorated burial chambers were not common in private tombs of Dynasty 18, and the scenes and texts usually distibuted among several rooms in contemporary tombs are condensed here into a single chamber. The ceiling blocks, south wall, and partially preserved east entrance wall are the parts of the standstone lining of the tomb installed here. The ceiling's inscriptions include a prayer to the sky goddess, Nut, recitations by Isis and Nut, and standard formulae claiming that "Osiris, the Overseer of the House of Siver, Sobekmose' is "honored by" the Four Sons of Horus and various gods. The cast entrance wall as reconstructed is decorated with protective texts and gardian figures of Anubis on the lintel, and scenes of ritual ablution are depicted on the door jambs. The long south wall shows a priest burning incense and pouring a libation, and the rest of the wall is taken up by seven prayers to numerous deities. The north and west walls, now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, depict Sobekmose's funeral procession and his presentation to the gods of the Underworld - Osiris and Anubis. The texts include selections from Spells 1, 15, 125, 130 and 151 of the Book of Dead, and Utterance 32 of the Pyramid texts.
The burial chamber was discovered in 1908 in the necropolis west of the village of Rizaqak, which is located on the west bank of the Nile between Armant and Gebelein. In the late ninteenth and early twentieth centuries several archaeologists observed at Rizaqat an extensive plundered cemetery with numerous muldbrick tombs and scattered objects typical of Middle and New Kingdom burials. Their explorations led to the discovery of only one other decorated tomb, and consequently Sobekmose's inscribed burial chamber is of particular importance in the history of this provincial cemetery. In a effort to preserve the tomb from vandalism in this unprotected site, it was offered for purchase to the Metropolitan Museum by the Egyptian government. The tomb was dismantled in 1908 by Emile Baraise, an engineer in the Egyptian Ozganization of Antiquities, and the blocks were then shipped to New York. In 1911, the chamber was reassembled in the Museum's Egyptian galleries, where it stood until 1952. The north and the west walls of the chamber were then placed on loan to the Museum of Fine Art at Boston, and in 1954 they were permanently transferred to that institution. In the texts of his burial chamber, Sobekmose is given many roles.
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