NEW KINGDOM, 18TH DYNASTY, AMARNA PERIOD, REIGN OF AKHENATEN, CIRCA 1353-1335 B.C.

Sculpted in sunk relief, depicting the head and shoulders of a royal attendant in profile to the right, wearing a short echeloned Nubian wig and a disk earring with a hand carrying a offering jar behind. Both men and women of the Amarna period wore a similar type of wig and disk earrings so it is impossible to surmise who this actually represents. Talatats were uniform size and shape light-weight relief blocks, designed for easy of use, used to decorate the wall of Amarna temples. Once these buildings had been abandoned many thousands of these blocks were used as fill and foundations for later 18th and 19th Dynasty buildings. For a relief depicting this wig type worn by men in a procession, cf. R. Freed (et al.), Pharaohs of the Sun, Boston 1999, p. 237, no. 109, and for a relief depciting a similar cone-shaped offering, cf. acc. no. 1971.294 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.