Wall Tile with Rekhyt Birds

Wall Tile with Rekhyt Birds

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The tile depicts two birds raising human hands. These birds, called rekhyt in Egyptian, came to represent humankind in a gesture that expresses adoration to the Egyptian king. The stars are hieroglyphs that write the word dwA "adoration," and the baskets on which they sit--nb, "all," expressing all humankind's expected attitude toward Pharaoh. Their image often decorates walls of temple and palaces, to which this tile probably belonged.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Wall Tile with Rekhyt BirdsWall Tile with Rekhyt BirdsWall Tile with Rekhyt BirdsWall Tile with Rekhyt BirdsWall Tile with Rekhyt Birds

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.