Description:
long cone shaped piece with large flat end inscribed with text; death/mourning; reading/reading material

Label Text:
The conical objects of fired clay known as funerary cones usually bear a stamped text on their circular face. The cones were inserted in rows, with the stamped face exposed, into the mud-brick superstructure of private tombs, where they may have been intended to represent the exposed ends of roof beans. Placed above the tomb entrance, they bore hieroglyphic texts giving the tomb owner’s names and titles. Most examples date from the eighteenth to the twenty-sixth dynasty, with a few precursors without text going back to the eleventh dynasty. Montuemhat, one of the most powerful officials of his era, is known through a series of masterfully sculpted statues and by his large tomb at Thebes (Theban tomb 34), from which this cone undoubtedly originates. Multiple funerary cones of his survive, some from the same stamp and others impressed by different stamps, highlighting a slightly different combination of titles. In this example, we see his post as governor of Upper Egypt touted as well as his role as a priest of Amun.
The face of this cone bears a text written in four horizontal lines, each reading from the right. The hieroglyphs are in raised relief, made from a stamp of uncertain material on which the forms were incised.

Translation:
“The fourth prophet of Amun, governor of Upper Egypt, Montuemhat, true of voice, eldest son of his body (of) the prophet of Amun, king’s acquaintance, Nesptah, born of the mistress of the house, Neskhons.”

Diana Wolfe Larkin, June 2014

Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1999.60.5

Research on objects in the collections, including provenance, is ongoing and may be incomplete. If you have additional information or would like to learn more about a particular object, please email fc-museums-web@fivecolleges.edu.