The Statue of Metjen is on display in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin and has the inventory number ÄM 1106. The statue was discovered at

Abusir Abusir ( ar, ابو صير ; Egyptian ''pr wsjr'' cop, ⲃⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲓ ' "the House or Temple of Osiris"; grc, Βούσιρις) is the name given to an Egyptian archaeological locality – specifically, an extensive necropolis of ...

Metjen Metjen (also read as Methen) was an ancient Egyptian high official at the transition time from 3rd Dynasty to 4th Dynasty. He is famous for his tomb inscription, which provide that he worked and lived under the kings (pharaohs) Huni and Sneferu. ...

mastaba A mastaba (, or ), also mastabah, mastabat or pr- djt (meaning "house of stability", " house of eternity" or "eternal house" in Ancient Egyptian), is a type of ancient Egyptian tomb in the form of a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with inwar ...

by the Egyptian expedition (1842–1845) under the direction of the Prussian scholar

Karl Richard Lepsius Karl Richard Lepsius ( la, Carolus Richardius Lepsius) (23 December 181010 July 1884) was a pioneering Prussian Egyptologist, linguist and modern archaeologist. He is widely known for his magnum opus ''Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien'' ...

. The statue and the mastaba were bought to the museum in Berlin. The statue is an early example of an Egyptian statue belonging to a private individual. Metjen lived at the end of the

Third Dynasty The Third Dynasty of ancient Egypt (Dynasty III) is the first dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Other dynasties of the Old Kingdom include the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth. The capital during the period of the Old Kingdom was at Memphis. Overview Af ...

and the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty (around 2600 BC). The statue is made of

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

and about 47 cm high. It is datable under king

Snofru Sneferu (wikt:snfr-wj, snfr-wj "He has perfected me", from ''Ḥr-nb-mꜣꜥt-snfr-wj'' "Horus, Lord of Maat, has perfected me", also read Snefru or Snofru), well known under his Hellenization, Hellenized name Soris ( grc-koi, Σῶρις by Mane ...

. Metjen is shown sitting on a chair. His right hand forms a fist and is placed on the chest, the left hand is placed on the leg. Metjen wears short curly hair. On the sides of the chair are inscriptions providing Metjen's name and his titles. The statue was once placed in the serdab of the mastaba and was therefore only visible via a small hole in the wall. The statue belongs to the small group of private statues datable to the Egyptian Third Dynasty and earliest Fourth Dynasty. They are all made of hard stone and appear somehow clumsy and heavy. The statue of Metjen is the latest one of them. The statue belongs therefore stylistically between those of the Third Dynasty and those of the Fourth Dynasty. Its head is slightly too large, the small dimensions and the hieroglyphic texts in raised relief connects the statue with the Third Dynasty. Typical for the Fourth Dynasty are the positions of the hands and the chair, that does no longer copies a real chair as in the Third Dynasty.Christiane Zieglerː ''Metjen seated'', in ''Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids'', The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York , pp. 208-209, no. 28

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*{{Commons category-inline, Statue of Metjen, Ägyptisches Museum Berlin 26th-century BC works 3rd-millennium BC sculptures 1840s archaeological discoveries Archaeological artifacts Sculptures of the Berlin State Museums Sculptures of ancient Egypt Sculptures of men in Germany Statues in Germany Egyptological objects of the Berlin State Museums Sneferu Granite sculptures