Offering Stands from the Pyramid of Amenemhet I

Abstract

IN AN ARTICLE entitled Two Royal Monuments of the Middle Kingdom Restored (The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 22 [1963-64] pp. 235-245) I concluded that the upper portion of a red granite offering stand donated by Dulaney Logan (63.46) derived from the North Pyramid at Lisht and that it was one of a pair that stood in front of our offering table from that pyramid (09.180.526). Further evidence for this conclusion has subsequently come to light among notes that were made by William C. Hayes in the winter of I933-34, recording miscellaneous material that had been excavated at the North Pyramid during previous seasons. These notes show a fragment of an offering stand (apparently left at the site) that was identical in material, scale, and design (Figures I, 2).' Since it shows the tops of the heraldic plants of Upper and Lower Egypt, as in the case of the more complete stand (Figure 3), this fragment confirms the existence of the pair as well as the correctness of the provenance. As the late Dr. T. George Allen pointed out (by letter to Eric Young), the phrase ^ on the top of the more complete stand (Figure 4) poses a difficulty. To him the lack of the indirect genitive after ` (tpt) suggested that the signs in question may actually be j' (whmt), which would yield the meaning: mansion