Standard-bearing Statue of Ramose

Ramose was a common name at Deir el-Medina, the village of the royal tomb builders, and the museum's record calls this wooden figure simply a standard-bearing statue of Ramose. It is often connected with the best-documented man of that name, though only indirectly. The statue is published among the inscriptions of the reign of Ramesses II, and in that reign a Ramose served as scribe of the Tomb, the chief record keeper of the crews, from about year 5 to year 38.

That Ramose left his name on more than 100 monuments and prepared three tombs for himself, and he is thought to have been the richest man the village had yet known. What he and his wife Mutemwia did not have was a child. They made offerings to the gods of fertility, Hathor, Min and Taweret, and in the end Ramose adopted a scribe named Qenherkhepeshef as his heir, who later held the same office.

The museum dates the statue only broadly, to the 19th or 20th Dynasty, and he stands holding a tall standard at his side.