Scribe Statue of Minnakht

In the Egypt of Thutmose III, grain did much of the work that money does today. Officials and workmen were paid in it, the temples' offerings came out of it, and after every harvest the state's stores had to be filled and counted. The man in charge of the double granary, the royal granaries of Upper and Lower Egypt, was a high dignitary, and this statue shows one who held that office, Minnakht. An official with the same name and title was given a tomb chapel on the west bank at Thebes in that same reign, though the museum does not say whether they are one man, and where this statue was found is not known.

He sits cross-legged in the pose of a scribe, a type the museum calls very ancient, reading a papyrus partly unrolled across his lap. His head is lost. The inscription sets out the duties of a good official, enforcing the laws and laying down the rules in the temple of every sanctuary. On the base in front of him lie a round loaf, a jug, a conical loaf, the head of an ox and the head of a bird, the opening words of the offering prayer, bread, beer, cattle and fowl, shown as the things themselves.