Unknown Maker, Egyptian

This fragment was once part of a temple relief depicting the king, Amenhotep I, grasping bound captives by the hair. The seemingly identical appearance of the bearded captives functioned as visual shorthand for foreign enemies of the Egyptian state. Closer inspection, however, reveals some individualized features, including different beard styles.The open mouth of the captive on the far right builds the feeling of tension and suspense in the scene, which when complete, showed the king in the moment before smiting his enemies to maintain order, or maat.

The Egyptian king smiting the kingdom's enemies was a popular motif throughout all of Egyptian history, with its earliest antecedents found in the late fourth millennium BCE.