Relief with milking scene
Type:
Funerary monument and ornaments
Year:
Old Kingdom, Dynasty V (2520–2360 B.C.)
Material and technique:
Painted limestone
Origin:
From Middle Egypt, from a mastaba in the Memphis necropolis
Inventory:
Inv. MB 2
This relief must have been next to the jamb of a “false door” or the entrance to a mastaba in the Memphis necropolis.
It depicts scenes from everyday life: milking cows (in the lower register), and the construction or repair of a boat (upper register).
Part of a third register originally positioned underneath this one is on a slab now at the museum of Dresden.
The hall
FUNERARY RELIEFS
Nearly all the reliefs in the Barracco Museum’s collection belong to the funerary sphere.
They come from a type of tomb, the mastaba (from the Arabic word for bench), which was especially characteristic of Old Kingdom necropolises.
