Nome Gods Bearing Offerings (c. 1391–1353 BCE): Art, History and Details

Nome Gods Bearing Offerings (c. 1391–1353 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

These blocks from a temple wall have preserved their original painted decoration to a remarkable degree. The four portly figures in the lower register bear emblems on their heads identifying them as nomes, or provinces, of ancient Egypt. Carrying trays heaped with offerings and leading sacrificial animals, they personify the bounty of the land. First (on the right) is the Oryx Nome, followed by the Dog Nome, the Falcon Nome, and the Double Scepter Nome. The face of each nome figure is a miniature portrait of Amenhotep III, and each recites a speech in the king's name. The first figure says, "King Nebmaatra [Amenhotep III] has come, bringing to you every good thing that is in this land, that you may give him all life, stability, dominion, and all health from you." The second, third, and fourth figures bring "all greens," "the produce of the Two Lands [Upper and Lower Egypt]," and "all offerings and provisions." The god to whom the nomes bring offerings stood in the fragmentary upper register, facing a standing figure of the king, Amenhotep III. The pair of legs on the right belonged to the god; the single foot on the left belonged to the king. The god held a scepter, forked at the bottom, embellished with coils of rope (for eternity), tadpoles (for hundreds of thousands), and notched palm ribs (for years), the whole signifying "an eternity of hundreds of thousands of years." These blocks may be from Amenhotep III's temple at Kom el-Ahmar, ancient Hebenu, in Middle Egypt, dedicated to the god Horus. Hebenu was the capital of the Oryx Nome, which leads the procession of nome gods. Amenhotep III's temple was later dismantled, and its blocks were reused in the foundations of another structure, which would account for the excellent preservation of the paint.

Object facts

• Title: Nome Gods Bearing Offerings
• Date: c. 1391–1353 BCE
• Culture: Egypt, New Kingdom (1540–1069 BCE), Dynasty 18, reign of Amenhotep III (1390–1352 BCE)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: painted limestone
• Dimensions: Overall: 66 x 133 cm (26 x 52 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Egypt - New Kingdom
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1976.51

A detail from the museum

Another block from the same temple wall was acquired 15 years earlier by the museum.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Windmuller-Luna, Kristen. "An Obsession with Heads: The Impact of African Arts, Anthropology, and Photography on the Works of Alberto Giacometti," Medium (May 2022).
• Kozloff, Arielle. "Ancient Art [Annual Report for 1976]." CMA Bulletin 64, no. 6 (June 1977): 159.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.