Skip Navigation

Model Rocker

Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art

Foundation Deposits

In addition to commissioning new buildings, Egyptian kings occasionally claimed existing structures such as temples or palaces as their own.


The most common way for a king to do this was to substitute his own name for that of the original builder in the inscriptions. When a king commissioned a new structure, he buried objects in the four corners of the foundation to be certain that the gods would remember the true builder and that later kings could not find and reinscribe them. These so-called foundation deposits usually included plaques with the king’s name, as well as models of objects used to erect the building, such as grinders, hoes, and rockers needed to move large stones.
MEDIUM Wood
DATES ca. 1478–1458 B.C.E.
DYNASTY Dynasty 18
PERIOD New Kingdom
DIMENSIONS 2 × 3 3/8 × 9 in. (5.1 × 8.5 × 22.8 cm) mount: 2 × 9 × 3 1/2 in. (5.1 × 22.9 × 8.9 cm)  (show scale)
ACCESSION NUMBER 02.226
CREDIT LINE Gift of the Egypt Exploration Fund
PROVENANCE Foundation deposit in south end of Middle Terrace, Great Temple of Deir el-Bahri, Thebes, Egypt; 1895-1902, excavated by Édouard Naville, Egypt Exploration Society; 1902, gift of the Egypt Exploration Society to the Brooklyn Museum.
Provenance FAQ
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Model wooden ‘rocker’ presumably for moving large stones. The two moving sides are of thin wood in shape of rockers and are connected by six (originally seven) crudely cut wooden bars which pierce through the sides. Inner side of one rocker incised with single column of inscription. Condition: End of one rocker missing. One cross bar missing. Inscription broken. Wood very dry.
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Model Rocker, ca. 1478–1458 B.C.E. Wood, 2 × 3 3/8 × 9 in. (5.1 × 8.5 × 22.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 02.226. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 02.226_threequarter01_PS22.jpg)
IMAGE threequarter, 02.226_threequarter01_PS22.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2024
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT 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.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.