Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Relief of a Desert Hunt
Middle Kingdom
Not on view
This object is not part of The Met collection. It was in the Museum for a special exhibition and has been returned to the lender.
For the ancient Egyptians, the desert hunt was not only a means of obtaining food and an elite leisure activity, but also a metaphor for the maintenance of order. This fragment from a tomb wall depicts part of a scene in which wild animals have been herded into a fenced enclosure and are being shot by a hunter originally depicted to the left. Nonroyal hunters were rarely depicted using a bow and arrow before the Middle Kingdom.
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