Seated Statue of Maya and Meryt by Rijksmuseum van Oudheden

Description

In this statue Maya (Director of the Treasury) and his wife Meryt are portrayed as recipients of food offerings. They are dressed in their finest clothes, and the statue was clearly painted at one time. Unfortunately, the white of the clothes has now turned yellowish. Maya was interior minister and finance of Tutankhamun and Horemheb, and also principal for these pharaohs. He founded a splendid tomb for himself and his wife Merit besides that of Horemheb in Saqqara. Three grave images of Maya and his wife since 1829 in Leiden. Their function was to accept substitute for the dead food offerings and to serve as a home for the Ka, the life principle of the deceased. The Maya group picture and Merit enables them in their finest clothes, waiting for food offerings. They wear gossamer linen robes. Maya holds a napkin. Individual Merit picture shows her with a menat, a musical instrument from the Amoncultus. Merit was a singer of Amun. The excavation project, the Egypt Exploration Society and the National Museum of Antiquities carried out between 1975 and 1999 in Saqqara, and now continues with the University of Leiden by the museum, the heropsporing aims of the New Kingdom tombs in the early the 19th century was opened by collectors, but then disappeared under the sand. After the rediscovery and excavation of the tombs of Horemheb and Tia (the brother of Ramses II) in 1986 was also the tomb of Maya and Merit again to light. Maya was one of the great men in Egypt Toetanchamonen…