A Relief from the Tomb of the Memphite Mayor Ptahmose in the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University

Abstract

The Saqqara tomb of the early 19th-Dynasty Mayor of Memphis and Chief Steward in the Temple of Ptah, Ptahmose, was accessible to explorers as early as the 1820s. Many items were taken from the tomb by art dealers and their local agents. These objects came into the possession of well-known collectors such as Giuseppe di Nizzoli and Giovanni d'Anastasi, and the sale of their collections further contributed to the objects' worldwide distribution. The

more scientifically motivated archaeological exploration of Ptahmose's tomb started in 1859 when Auguste Mariette and his assistant Théodule Devéria worked in the area. Two photographs taken by the latter in 1859 had long been the last documentation of the tomb – until it was rediscovered as recently as 2010. After 1859, undocumented excavations and illicit diggings continued, and over the years, items originating from the tomb surfaced in museum collections. One such object is the relief-decorated block presented in this article. It is currently held in the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. This contribution aims to present for the first time a complete description and discussion of the block's iconography and texts, and to address the question of how the object got to the Nasher Museum: starting at Saqqara and then being passed on through art dealers, collectors and middlemen in the 19th and 20th centuries.