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Meryre was an ancient Egyptian official under king Amenhotep III in the 18th Dynasty around 1375 BC. His main title was
Meryre was an ancient Egyptian official under king Amenhotep III in the 18th Dynasty around 1375 BC. His main title was treasurer
A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance.
Government
The treasury ...
. He was therefore one of the most important officials at the royal court, looking after the belongings of the king and the goods of the palace.
Meryre is so far only attested in his tomb at Saqqara
Saqqara ( ar, سقارة, ), also spelled Sakkara or Saccara in English , is an Egyptian village in Giza Governorate, that contains ancient burial grounds of Egyptian royalty, serving as the necropolis for the ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis ...
, that was discovered in the 1980s in the temple area known as the Bubasteum. The tomb is decorated with reliefs. Some of them were already early on cut out of the walls and sold on the art market. Two of these reliefs are now in Vienna
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( Kunsthistorisches Museum). Old drawings show that they were once in a much better condition.Betsy M. Bryan: ''Tomb Relief of Chancellor Meryra and Lady Baketamun'', and ''Tomb Reliefs of Meryra and Baketamun before the Gods Osiris and Ra-Horachte'', in: Arielle P. Kozloff, Betsy M. Bryan, Lawrence M. Berman: ''Egypt's Dazzling Sun. Amenhotep III and his World''. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland 1992, , pp. 292–294, nos. 58 and 59. One block depicts Meryre and his wife Baketamun in front of the underworld god Osiris
Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wsjr'', cop, ⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲉ , ; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎𐤓, romanized: ʾsr) is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He wa ...
and in a second register in front of Ra-Horachte. The other fragment shows Meryre and his wife in front of an offering table in the upper register. In the lower register he is shown together with the king's son Siatum, who is sitting on his lap. Meryre was evidently the tutor of this king's son. The father of Siatum is not mentioned and it was most likely Thutmose IV
Thutmose IV (sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis IV, Thothmes in older history works in Latinized Greek; egy, ḏḥwti.msi(.w) "Thoth is born") was the 8th Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, who ruled in approximately the 14th century ...
(the father of Amenhotep III under whom Meyre served).
In the tomb of Meryre no king's name is preserved. The tomb and Meryre are datable on stylistic grounds under king Amenhotep III, perhaps around year 30 of the king's reign.
References