Hunting Scene, Tomb of Ineni

The tomb chapel of Ineni (TT 81) at Sheikh Abd el‑Qurna, Theban necropolis, provided the original context for the scene. Nina de Garis Davies produced a painted facsimile of the now-fragmentary Hunting Scene during the 1920s–1930s campaign of epigraphic recording directed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Oriental Institute, Chicago.

The facsimile was subsequently accessioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where it remains in the Egyptian Art collection (acc. no. 30.4.52).

The facsimile painting known as Hunting Scene, created by Nina M. Davies to document the decorations in the Tomb of Ineni (TT 81), is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum accessioned the work under the inventory number 30.4.52. While the original tomb decorations date to approximately 1550 BCE, this specific copy serves as a recorded representation of the hunting imagery, including depictions of dogs and gazelles, found within the burial chamber.

Nina M. Davies’s watercolor reproduces a hunting tableau originally painted on the wall of the Tomb of Ineni, a high‑ranking official from the early 18th Dynasty (circa 1550 BCE). The image captures a coordinated chase involving a dog, spearmen, and several animals, rendered in the flat palette and simplified forms characteristic of the period’s tomb decoration.

The Tomb of Ineni, located at Saqqara, contains a series of hunting scenes that were typical of elite burial chambers in the early New Kingdom. Such depictions were intended to demonstrate the tomb owner’s status, martial skill, and ability to secure sustenance in the afterlife, aligning with broader Egyptian funerary conventions.