Akhenaten’s Libyans: Reinterpreting a Relief Fragment from the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep II

This article discusses a sandstone relief in the collections of the Manchester Museum (inv. no. 3507) that has, since it arrived in the collection, been described as depicting Syrian soldiers and originating from the mortuary temple of Merenptah at Qurna. This reinterpretation of the piece instead suggests that it depicts Libyan warriors, not Syrians, most likely shown as part of a royal procession. The piece is dated on stylistic grounds to early in the reign of Akhenaten, and a hypothesis is proposed that it was originally part of the decorative program of an uncompleted temple structure begun by Akhenaten on what would later become the grounds of the Ramesseum.

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