Funerary Cone of the Royal Tutor Heqaerneheh

This funerary cone has the impression of a stamp seal inscribed for the Child of the Nursery and Royal Tutor Heqaerneheh (Heqa-er-neheh), owner of Theban Tomb 64 (TT 64) in the Sheikh Abd el-Qurna cemetery of Western Thebes.

Heqaerneheh was probably born in the reign of Amenhotep II and his title Child of the Nursery suggests that he was brought up in the royal nursery with the king's children who would have included the prince who became Thutmose IV. As an adult, Heqaerneheh became Royal Tutor of Thutmose's son and successor, Amenhotep III.

The cone is now missing about half of its length, and one side of the stamped end was slightly flattened when the clay was still damp, deforming the oval shape of the seal. Another cone in The MET's collection has a better preserved impression of the seal.

Hundreds of inscribed pottery funerary cones dating to the New Kindom and later have been found in the non-royal cemeteries of the Theban necropolis. During the 1926-27 field season, the Museum's excavators uncovered a Middle Kingdom tomb (MMA 110) with rows of unstamped cones embedded along the upper edge of the façade (see fig. 1). Stamped cones like those inscribed for Heqaerneheh were probably used in the same way, identifying the tomb owner by name and title.

The stamp on this cone is type 102 in A Corpus of Inscribed Egyptian Funerary Cones compiled by Norman de Garis Davies and published by M. F. Laming Macadam in 1957 by Oxford University Press. (CHR)