This is one of my favourite pieces in the Cairo Museum, it’s a wooden statue of a man carrying containers and it’s a bit over a foot high. It was found at Meir, in the tomb of a man called Niankhpepi who lived during the reign of Pepi I in the 6th Dynasty in the Old Kingdom.

The box in his arms is very highly decorated, and you can just see the handle at the top. And on his back he carries what looks very like a child’s school satchel, except that it has legs sticking down from the base so that when you put it down it will stand up.

The statue is a model servant, placed in the tomb to work for Niankhpepi in the afterlife. These sorts of models developed into the elaborate dioramas of activities like bread baking or brewing which have been found in First Intermediate Period and early Middle Kingdom tombs.

It’s in the Cairo Museum, acc. no. JE30810 or CG241.

See it on my photo site: https://photos.talesfromthetwolands.org/picture.php?/489/ and go to the left for two more photos of him.

I’ve talked about Tomb Models on the blog before: https://talesfromthetwolands.org/2020/11/01/tomb-models/

Jigsaw puzzles:
easier: https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=14c9f3f4f1f8
harder: https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=143146ee18cb