Limestone column capital (Acc. 5102)

Limestone column capital in the shape of a closed lotus blossom, discovers in a temple enclosure built by King Merenptah (19th Dynasty). It had been reused, and had originally belonged to a temple dating back to the 5th Dynasty. (Memphis, 5th and 19th Dynasty)

69.0 x 40.0 cm 5th Dynasty (reused in 19th Dynasty) Memphis (Mit Rahina), Lower Egypt Acquisition: British School of Archaeology in Egypt (Donation)

Bibliography:

W.M. Flinders Petrie, "The Palace of Apries (Memphis II)" (BSAE and Bernard Quaritch, London 1909)

Pg. 13-14 "41. In the temple enclosure of Merenptah on the foreign quarter, a part of the actual temple has been cleared this year ... but here we publish a capital which is obviously an older sculpture, re-used there in the XIXth dynasty. Just as we recovered an earlier lotus capital from that site last year (MEMPHIS I, III), so we have now recovered two other capitals, probably of the Vth dynasty, brought away--like so much other material--from the cemetery of Abusir or Saqqara. These are of a type which is [pg.14] known represented in relief-carvings of scenes of the Vth dynasty, but which has never been seen in the round as an actual capital. It is copied from the Rose-lotus or Nelumbium, with flowers of the blue lotus placed in the intervals between the points of the buds.