The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Talatat: Men Hoeing the Earth

Talatat: Men Hoeing the Earth

c. 1353–1347 BCE
(1540–1069 BCE), Dynasty 18, reign of Akhenaten (1351–1334 BCE)
painted sandstone
Overall: 21.4 x 53.3 cm (8 7/16 x 21 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1959.187
Location: 107 Egyptian

Description

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.
  • Karnak. Purchased from Mrs. Paul Mallon, Paris
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, and Martha L. Carter. Egyptian Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: The Museum, 1963. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 11 archive.org
    Cooney, John D. “Amarna Art in the Cleveland Museum.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 55, no. 1 (January 1968): 2–17. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 9-10, fig. 7 www.jstor.org
    Kozloff, Arielle P. “Nefertiti, Beloved of the Living Disk.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 64, no. 9 (November 1977): 287–298. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 293-294, fig. 10 www.jstor.org
    Berman, Lawrence M., and Kenneth J. Bohač. Catalogue of Egyptian Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999 Reproduced: p. 245; Mentioned: p. 245-246
  • Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Art from the Age of the Sun King. The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (organizer) (September 17-November 25, 1973); The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (December 19, 1973-February 28, 1974).
    Brooklyn/Detroit 1973-74, no. 41
  • {{cite web|title=Talatat: Men Hoeing the Earth|url=false|author=|year=c. 1353–1347 BCE|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1959.187