Model of a Granary with Scribes

Some of these small figures carry sacks. Others measure the grain or keep accounts. Six men bring in the crop, while nine deal with measuring and recording it. Even in this wooden model, administration takes plenty of people. The granary separates storage from the accounting area. Among the scribes, two write on papyrus scrolls and two use wooden boards. These different tasks turn a food store into a picture of an estate at work. The model belonged to Meketre, a high Egyptian official whose burial included miniature scenes intended to provide for his afterlife. In 1920, excavators found twenty-four models in a concealed chamber beside the passage into his tomb. The larger tomb had been robbed long before, but this small space had escaped the disturbance. Under the excavation arrangements of the time, half the models went to Cairo and half to The Met. Pause over one of the workers before looking back at the whole building. A sack arrives on a carrier’s shoulder, grain is measured and a scribe makes a record. Meketre’s food supply depended on every part of that sequence, even in his model of the afterlife.