Relief Representation of Goatherd with Goat and Trees
Brooklyn Museum photograph
About this Brooklyn Icon
The Brooklyn Museum is commemorating its 200th anniversary by spotlighting 200 standout objects in its encyclopedic collection.
This serene scene of natural beauty is made up of limestone blocks, or talatats, that were separated and scattered for thousands of years. Now reunited, they form the largest example of a talatat relief scene in North America.
Talatat blocks date exclusively to the reign of the ancient Egyptian king Akhenaten. During his rule, Akhenaten initiated ambitious building projects at Karnak Temple and his new city of Amarna. Talatats are of standard size, which allowed the ancient Egyptians to speedily erect legions of structures for their king.
After Akhenaten’s reign, his city and temples were dismantled. Successive rulers reused the talatats from those structures as the foundations and fillings of their own monuments. These four blocks were found at Hermopolis, across the Nile River from Amarna, reused in temples built by Ramesses II.
Object Label
These three blocks originally were part of a large pastoral scene depicting the countryside surrounding a temple. A guard snoozes on the job at the temple entrance on the lower left, while a goatherd watches his goat as it grazes on the right. Trees and the line of the temple wall carry over to the upper block, where along another ground line, there is the face of a grazing calf and the legs of a man dancing. Pastoral scenes were invented by Amarna period artists. Scenes like this one were the source for later pastoral scenes in Egyptian art.
Caption
Relief Representation of Goatherd with Goat and Trees, ca. 1350–1333 B.C.E.. Limestone, 8 1/4 x 16 3/4 x 2 1/2 in., 22.5 lb. (21 x 42.5 x 6.4 cm, 10.21kg). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Ernest Erickson Foundation, Inc., 86.226.30. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 86.226.30_PS2.jpg)
Tags
Title
Relief Representation of Goatherd with Goat and Trees
Date
ca. 1350–1333 B.C.E.
Dynasty
late Dynasty 18
Period
New Kingdom, Amarna Period
Geography
Place modified: Hermopolis, Egypt, Reportedly from: Tell el-Amarna, Egypt
Medium
Limestone
Classification
Dimensions
8 1/4 x 16 3/4 x 2 1/2 in., 22.5 lb. (21 x 42.5 x 6.4 cm, 10.21kg)
Credit Line
Gift of the Ernest Erickson Foundation, Inc.
Accession Number
86.226.30
Rights
Creative Commons-BY
You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
Have information?
Have information about an artwork? Contact us at
