Nubian Granite Offering Table

Culture: Egyptian/Nubia

Period: 300-30 B.C.

Material: Granite

Dimensions: 44 cm x 44 cm

Price: 32 000 Euro

Ref: 1531

Provenance: Old collection of L. Kmeid, Genf. Later at Boisgirard & Associés in Paris, sold at auction on 28 November 2005, lot 128. Subsequently, in Galerie Eberwein in Göttingen. Acquired there in 2011 by a French private collection in Marseille. With a description from Galerie Eberwein and French antiquities passport.

Condition: Unrestored, apart from insignificant edge chips, wonderfully preserved.

Description: Magnificent and heavy granite offering table, reportedly originating from the necropolis of Meroë. The rectangular offering slab, with a large spout on one of its long sides, is modelled after the hieroglyph hetep, which signifies the word “to offer.” The table is divided into four registers of varying size. In the first register, beginning at the spout, various blossoms and leek stalks are depicted. In the following registers, one can identify baskets of bread and fruit, geese, beef haunches, and vegetables. The edible offerings would have been placed in accordance with these depictions. In the recessed area near the spout, liquid offerings were poured for the deceased, such as water, beer, wine, and milk. For the Egyptians and Nubians, the needs of the gods and the dead were the same as those of the living. For this reason, the offering table, on which food and drink were placed, was an essential element of funerary cult practice. Offering tables were usually set up near the coffin of the deceased, in a special niche or chapel. The relatives of the dead or designated funerary priests would place there the culinary offerings of the living world. Compare with the type of the offering table from Nubia at Harvard University with the number 21.11.92, as well as the offering tables from Meroë published in: John Garstang, Archibald Henry Griffith, and Francis Llewellyn “Meroë, the City of the Ethiopians: Being an Account of a First Season’s Excavations on the Site, 1909-1910”, Oxford 1911. Mounted.