Statue of Kheperka, Overseer of Fields

Every year the Nile flood covered the fields of Egypt, and once the water went down the land had to be measured and recorded again, because the harvest taxes depended on it. That was the work of an overseer of fields, and the museum counts Kheperka among the vizier's main collaborators. According to the inscription, this statue was a gift to him from the king himself.

Which king, the stone no longer says. The cartouche with the royal name is unreadable. So the museum looks at the carving instead, the features of the face and the linear way the muscles of the chest are drawn, and on that basis it suggests one of two kings of the 13th Dynasty, Marmesha or Antef V. The first of those names means general, an overseer of troops. The inscription calls on Amun and on Sobek, the crocodile god, the two most important gods of the late Middle Kingdom.