Kitchen Tender being Rowed
A model kitchen boat in which cooks prepare bread and meat under an awning: the supply boat that followed Meketre's traveling boat. Full commentary ↓
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Kitchen Tender being Rowed is a textile by an unknown maker (ca. 1981–1975 B.C.) in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In the pictureA white awning is stretched over a boat painted yellow, and several figures sit and work beneath it and on the deck. At the front are oarsmen holding oars; at the back are a large steering oar and a standing figure; models of jars and tools sit on the deck. Including the oars, it is 1.5 meters long.
BackgroundWhen an Egyptian nobleman traveled on the Nile, a kitchen boat that prepared food followed behind the boat he rode in. The figures in this model are cooks baking bread, brewing beer, and preparing meat, so that even in the afterlife Meketre would not have to worry about food on his journeys. Seen side by side with the traveling boat model from the same tomb, it completes a fleet.
Puzzle tipThe white awning, the yellow hull, and the red steering oar are clear reference points. Fit the bright pieces of the awning and the curved pieces of the bow and stern first, then place the pieces with small figures and jars on the deck by checking them against the preview. The gray background comes last. 48 pieces suits it.
- Period
- Middle Kingdom
- Dynasty
- Dynasty 12
- Medium
- Wood, paint, plaster, linen twine and cloth
- Dimensions
- l. with rudder 147 cm (57 7/8 in); w. with oars 73 cm (28 3/
- Credit line
- Rogers Fund and Edward S. Harkness Gift, 1920
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art ↗
Stories about this work
- An Afterlife Fleet in Five Pieces from a Hidden Chamber in Meketre's Tomb
In 1920, excavators opened a hidden chamber in a 4,000-year-old tomb and found model boats with their colors intact. Five pieces from Meketre's afterlife fleet.
