Temple Relief with Royal Marines

This fragment of a painted wall relief comes from the celebrated temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, a sacred precinct on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes, Egypt’s religious capital. Erected by Hatshepsut as a mortuary temple for herself and her father, Tuthmosis I, in honor of the god Amun, this grand terraced structure is one of the most beautiful and most impressive monuments surviving from Egyptian antiquity. The fragment, which decorated the temple’s upper court, depicts two sailors of the royal Egyptian navy, equipped with battle-axes. The sailors originally formed part of a much larger military procession marking the Beautiful Feast of the Valley, a yearly festival celebrating the return of the Theban gods to their religious shrines. The Art Museum's relief formed the beginning of one such military file accompanying the arrival, by royal barge, of the obelisks of Hatshepsut and her husband, Tuthmosis II. The lead figure, the procession leader, bears a fan-shaped military standard. The royal cartouche that appears above his head is inscribed ""pa heka"" (“the ruler”); probably this referred to Hatshepsut herself, who had assumed the throne as pharaoh.

The sculpture is distinguished by its crisp, delicate carving, executed in shallow relief. The carving preserves much of its original painted decoration: red ochre for the flesh tones and black for the wigs.

Two sailors, two faces: though they are just part of the supporting cast to the Pharaoh, these two participants in the procession have distinct personalities—the probable work of two different artists carving side by side.