Model Bakery and Brewery from the Tomb of Meketre

What you see

What you see

A model of a combined bakery and brewery, of wood, gesso, paint and linen, 73 cm long, 55 cm wide and 29 cm high; the figures average 21 cm in height. According to the museum's description, the making of bread and beer was closely related in ancient Egypt, both using basically the same kind of ingredients, so the two processes are combined here in one workshop complex, albeit with separate rooms. A guard with a baton sits inside the screened-off main doorway that leads first into the brewery. There a man crushes grain with a pestle, two women grind it into flour, another man works it into lumps of dough, possibly adding yeast from the square basin in the corner, and a second man adds water to the lumps of dough and treads the mash with his feet in a tall vat. The liquid is set aside in four tall crocks to ferment, and is then poured off into round jugs covered with black clay stoppers. Source 1.

The bakery, in the inner room, is divided by a screen wall into two compartments. In the first a man again crushes grain with a pestle for two female millers, two men mix the dough in tall tubs, and two black ovens are tended by a man with a poker; in the middle stands a basket of baked conical loaves. In the second compartment are two more men with pestles, and two others make loaves and cakes of various shapes; some are baked on two circular stoves, while some, the description says, must have been carried over to the ovens in the first section. This page has no photograph: according to the museum's data its photograph of the model is in the public domain, but it is not included here in this round. Source 1.

What the record says

The record dates the model "ca. 1981-1975 B.C.", to the Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12, "reign of Amenemhat I, early". The culture field is empty. Findspot: "From Egypt, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Southern Asasif, Tomb of Meketre (TT 280, MMA 1101), serdab, MMA excavations, 1920". According to the description, the model was discovered in a hidden chamber at the side of the passage leading into the rock-cut tomb of the royal chief steward Meketre, who began his career under King Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II of Dynasty 11 and continued to serve successive kings into the early years of Dynasty 12. All the accessible rooms of the tomb had been robbed in antiquity; early in 1920 the museum's excavator, Herbert Winlock, wanted an accurate floor plan of the tomb for his map of the Eleventh Dynasty necropolis at Thebes and had his workmen clean out the debris. During this cleaning the small hidden chamber was discovered, "filled with twenty-four almost perfectly preserved models"; half went to the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, and half came to the Met in the partition of finds. Source 1.

One model, two records

The figures of the bakers and brewers have a record of their own at the museum: "Bakers and Brewers from Meketre's Model Bakery and Brewery", number 20.3.12-BAKERS, with the same date, findspot and credit line, on view in the same gallery. The site treats them as part of the same model, not as a second object. The figures' record page does not explain why they are recorded separately. Source 1.

Placement on the timeline

The record names the period, "Middle Kingdom", Dynasty 12 and the early reign of Amenemhat I. On the Met's timeline the Middle Kingdom runs about 2030-1640 BCE, and Amenemhat I is the founder of Dynasty 12, who moved the capital from Thebes to Itj-tawy in the north; the model is therefore placed in the Middle Kingdom by the period name in the record. In the museum's data the end year of the range is recorded as 1981, unlike the displayed date; the site follows the displayed date, 1981-1975. The model is a funerary representation of a craft, not a photograph of a real workshop and not a sample of the division of labour. On this site, the hippopotamus "William" from Meir comes from the burial equipment of another official of the period, which according to its record also included numerous models of boats and food production. Sources 1, 2, 3.

Where it is now

Held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, record 20.3.12, "Rogers Fund and Edward S. Harkness Gift, 1920". On 24 October 2026 the record stated "On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 105". Source 1.