In the later Old Kingdom models of workers performing tasks such as grinding grain, baking, and brewing were placed in private tombs. These models were first made of limestone as single figures, and later mostly of wood, often in groups such as offering-bearers. In style the figures are simply carved without the details and inscriptions of the statues of tomb owners found in their serdabs.
In the First Intermediate Period wooden models in provincial tombs became greatly elaborated, such as the model soldiers from the tomb of Mesehti at Asyut. In this model four columns of soldiers carry spears and shields symbolizing local aspirations of power. The most remarkable group of wooden models comes from an early 12th-Dynasty tomb at Deir el-Bahri, of Meketra (Figure 7.2). On a much smaller scale than that of Mentuhotep II’s, Meketra’s tomb was also approached by a long ramp. At the top of the ramp was a portico with nine columns, behind which were two rock-cut passages. Although the tomb had been investigated previously (in 1895 and 1902), a small chamber covered by stone debris had been overlooked, and 24 well-preserved wooden models were found there in 1920 by Herbert Winlock and Ambrose Lansing.
Half of Meketra’s models are of boats, the largest of which have sails for going upstream or rowers for downstream travel. A small model of two papyrus boats is equipped with a fishing net in which there are model fish. Models of craft activities include weaving and carpentry, with miniature carpenters’ tools. The model of a house and garden, with fruit trees planted around a rectangular pool, provides design details of an elite estate. Models of cattle include a barn and butchering activities, and one portrays a cattle count, with recordkeeping scribes seated beneath a columned porch.
Figure 7.2 View into the small chamber of Meketra’s 12th-Dynasty tomb at Deir el-Bahri where the wooden models were found. Source: Photography by the Egyptian Expedition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Other models of “daily life” are of baking and brewing activities, and granaries where the cereal was stored. Although these models were made for ideological reasons - for burial in Meketra’s tomb - they are informative about boat technology, and craft and domestic activities of the period. They are also significant as models of an ideal life and environment. The three models that depict events related to the funeral, including two large painted statues of female offering-bearers, may be ritual artifacts, or have different symbolic meaning than those of activities on an elite estate.
A remarkable set of wooden models from a tomb at Deir el-Bersha have recently been exhibited in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). The tomb of Djhuty-nakht (Tomb 10A) was excavated in 1915 by Clarence Fisher (working for George Reisner). Hundreds of wooden fragments of these models were sent to Boston, where they were stored in the museum’s basement, and beginning in the late 1990s these fragments were restored by a conservator and then exhibited in 2009-2010 - almost a century after they were found. The models include ones similar to those found in Meketra’s tomb, such as ones of “daily life” activities on the nomarch’s estate. But most remarkable are the huge number of model boats (58), including boats for transport and cooking, as well as funerary and pilgrimage boats.
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