Cleveland Museum of Art

Talatat: Men Hoeing the Earth

Date: c. 1353–1347 BCE
Medium: painted sandstone
Culture: Egypt, Karnak, New Kingdom (1540–1069 BCE), Dynasty 18, reign of Akhenaten (1351–1334 BCE)
Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID: 135657

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

In the early part of his reign, Amenhotep IV built an enormous temple to the sun disk (Aten) at the east end of the temple of Karnak. To expedite construction, sandstone was quarried in small, regularly sized, easily manageable blocks called talatat. Unlike the huge monoliths typically used in temple construction, talatat could be carried and moved into position by one man. Not all of the temple was built of stone, however. In this block, workmen are shown bent in toil. They once formed part of a panoramic scene depicting the production of mud bricks. The men are involved in the initial stages of this process: hacking up the earth and gathering the raw clay. It is very likely that this talatat represents a distinct historical event, undoubtedly connected with Amenhotep IV’s huge building enterprises at East Karnak.

View at Cleveland Museum of Art ↗

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.

Get printable QR codes

Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.

Open this page

See at Cleveland Museum of Art

Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Credit line: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Provenance: Karnak. Purchased from Mrs. Paul Mallon, Paris

Part of a LinkedCulture topic

Ancient Egyptian Personal Objects
These objects are cosmetic implements and grooming tools from ancient Egypt, including mirrors, palettes for grinding pigments, and decorative knives, representing daily life and personal adornment practices.
476 objects from 5 institutions