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Object Label

The scene to which this block once belonged probably showed a desert hunting party. The hunters, Akhenaten and his entourage, would have appeared in chariots bearing down on their helpless prey. Their approach has not gone unnoticed: the ears of the two bubalis antelopes perk up at the sound of danger. The back of a third antelope may be seen in the lower right corner. Such isolated blocks provide a hint of the complex decorative schemes that once existed in the palace at el Amarna.

Caption

Antelopes, ca. 1352–1336 B.C.E.. Limestone, pigment, 20 11/16 x 8 7/8 in. (52.5 x 22.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 60.197.5. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 60.197.5_SL1.jpg)

Title

Antelopes

Date

ca. 1352–1336 B.C.E.

Dynasty

late Dynasty 18

Period

New Kingdom, Amarna Period

Geography

Place found: Hermopolis, Egypt, Place made: Tell el-Amarna, Egypt

Medium

Limestone, pigment

Classification

Sculpture

Dimensions

20 11/16 x 8 7/8 in. (52.5 x 22.5 cm)

Credit Line

Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund

Accession Number

60.197.5

Rights

Creative Commons-BY

You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.

Frequent Art Questions

  • Are the red markings that highlight the images in the relief put there later or when they were originally made?

    It is all original. Most reliefs, were brightly painted in Ancient Egypt. But unlike the stone its painted on, fragile paint pigments don't always to survive well over thousands of years, so they come to us lacking much of their original bright paint.
    So these colors probably represent their skin color?
    Good question: Skin color was indicated with colors, yes, with men typically painted red, and women painted yellowish-white. That doesn't help us pinpoint what actual Egyptians looked like because this was clearly just a convention - real Egyptian women weren't paper-white, nor were the men really bright red.

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