The Ramesses III prisoner tiles are a collection of

Egyptian faience Egyptian faience is a sintered-quartz ceramic material from Ancient Egypt. The sintering process "covered he materialwith a true vitreous coating" as the quartz underwent vitrification, creating a bright lustre of various colours "usually in ...

depicting prisoners of war, found in

Ramesses III Usermaatre Meryamun Ramesses III was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt, Twentieth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt. Some scholars date his reign from 26 March 1186 to 15 April 1155 BC, and he is considered the last pharaoh of the New K ...

's palace at Medinet Habu (adjacent to the Mortuary Temple at Medinet Habu) and

Tell el-Yahudiyeh Tell may refer to: * Tell (archaeology), a type of archaeological site * Tell (name), a name used as a given name and a surname * Tell (poker), a subconscious behavior that can betray information to an observant opponent Arts, entertainment, an ...

. Large numbers of

faience Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white Ceramic glaze, pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an stannous oxide, oxide of tin to the Slip (c ...

tiles have been found in these areas by

sebakh Sebakh (, less commonly transliterated as ''sebbakh'') is an Arabic word that translates to "fertilizer". In English, the term is primarily used to describe decomposed mudbricks from archaeological sites, which is an organic material that can be ...

-diggers since 1903; the best known are those depicting foreign people or prisoners. Many were found in excavated rubbish heaps. They are considered of significant historical and ethnographical interest, given the representation of neighbouring populations during the

Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt The Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XX, alternatively 20th Dynasty or Dynasty 20) is the third and last dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian New Kingdom period, lasting from 1189 BC to 1077 BC. The 19th and 20th Dynasties together constitut ...

(1189 BC–1077 BC). Most are in the

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, commonly known as the Egyptian Museum (, Egyptian Arabic: ) (also called the Cairo Museum), located in Cairo, Egypt, houses the largest collection of Ancient Egypt, Egyptian antiquities in the world. It hou ...

in Cairo, as well as the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...

Description

Location and size

Doorway at Medinet Habu showing location of Ramesses III prisoner tiles

Tiles were found in 1870 at Tell el-Yahoudieh and in 1903 in Medinet Habu. Those of Tell el-Yahoudieh are larger, with a width of circa , whilst those are Medinet Habu fall into two groups and . All the tiles are rectangular, with a base thickness of , and together with the

relief Relief is a sculpture, sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''wikt:relief, relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give ...

sculpture of the people, the total thickness is . The Medinet Habu prisoner tiles were originally located in three rectangular cells on either side of the palace doorways, each of in height and in width. In all the tiles, the prisoners are shown standing up. In some tiles, the soles of the prisoners' feet rest on the ground; in others they may be interpreted as running or hanging. The prisoners' arms are often tied, and in other tiles a white and black rope with acorns at the ends is shown around the neck.

Identification and provenance

In his 1911

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...

on the tiles, French

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ) is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end ...

Georges Daressy Georges Émile Jules Daressy (19 March 1864 – 28 February 1938) was a French Egyptologist. He worked from 1887 in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Amongst his responsibilities was the museum's move from Bulaq to Giza in 1891, and then to the pre ...

, of the

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

, noted that the tiles have no inscriptions, so identification of the peoples shown required a comparison of the drawings with previously known temple bas-reliefs or tomb paintings, giving some uncertainty:

Unfortunately, there is no inscription on these tiles fixing the name of the peoples represented; we are forced to compare with the bas-reliefs of the temples or the paintings of the tombs to find a similar type and we are sometimes perplexed.

Formal excavation work at Medinet Habu by the

Egyptian Antiquities Service The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA; ) was established in 1994, responsible for the conservation, protection, and regulation of all antiquities and archaeological excavations in Egypt. From 1994 to 2011, the SCA was a department of the Egyptia ...

(EAS) ended in 1899, but work continued by local

fellahin A fellah ( ; feminine ; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', , ) is a local peasant, usually a farmer or agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic word for "ploughman" or "tiller". Due to a con ...

-diggers (sebakh is the nitrogen-rich remains of ancient

mud brick Mudbrick or mud-brick, also known as unfired brick, is an air-dried brick, made of a mixture of mud (containing loam, clay, sand and water) mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw. Mudbricks are known from 9000 BCE. From ...

, dug up to be used as fertilizer). In 1903, the fellahin discovered remains of overturned doorways, still partly covered with their original decoration in enamelled tiles. Some pieces disappeared, but most were collected by the "ghafirs" and sent by

Howard Carter Howard Carter (9 May 18742 March 1939) was a British archaeologist and Egyptology, Egyptologist who Discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, discovered Tomb of Tutankhamun, the intact tomb of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, 18th Dynasty Pharaoh ...

, then Chief Inspector of the EAS in Upper Egypt, to the Cairo Museum, together with four of the pillars and an

overdoor An "overdoor" (or "Supraporte" as in German, or "sopraporte" as in Italian) is a painting, bas-relief or decorative panel, generally in a horizontal format, that is set, typically within ornamental mouldings, over a door, or was originally intend ...

to which they had belonged. The Egyptian Museum tablets are numbered JE 36261 a-b, 36271, 36399, 36440 a-c, 36441 a-c, 36457 a-k, as well as one prior to the 1903 accessions numbered JE 27525. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts noted in 1908 that the tiles' "provenance is a matter of question". They were purchased in 1903 on behalf of the museum by Albert Lythgoe from Luxor-based antiquities dealer Mohamed Mohassib; the purchase was made as part of a group (03.1566-03.1577; 03.1578a-i).

Gallery

File:Ancient Egypt Limestone Bas-Reliefs (28347665381).jpg, Display at the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

(E 4855 and E 7691 A-D) File:PalaceInlays-NubiansPhilistineAmoriteSyrianAndHittite-Compilation-MuseumOfFineArtsBoston.png, Compilation from the Boston Museum of fine arts File:Canaanites and Shasu Leader captives from Ramses III's tile collection; By Niv Lugassi.png, Compilation from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo

Bibliography

General sources

Medinet Habu tiles

* * *

Eduard Meyer Eduard Meyer (25 January 1855 – 31 August 1930) was a German historian. He was the brother of Celticist Kuno Meyer (1858–1919). Biography Meyer was born in Hamburg and educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums and later at the unive ...

,
Bericht über eine Expedition nach Ägypten zur Erforschung der Darstellungen der Fremdvölker
(Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, Sitzungsberichte, 1913, pp. 769-801) Nos. 1-11. * * Capart, Documents pour servir à l'étude de l'art égyptien II (Paris, 1931) Pl. 77.

Tell el-Yahoudieh tiles

Émile Brugsch Émile Brugsch (February 24, 1842 – January 14, 1930) was a German Egyptologist known for having thrown on the rubbish heap an arm found in the tomb of Djer which Ancient Egyptians believed was the tomb of Osiris. He was also the official who ...

, 1886
On et Onion
Recueil de travaux, volume VII, p.1 * Thomas Hayter Lewis, 1881
Tel el-Yahoudeh
Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, volume VII, p.177

References

External links

{{commons category, Ramses III prisoner tiles
One of the tiles at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
12th-century BC works Ancient Egyptian pottery Egyptian Museum Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Ramesses III