Kneeling Statue of Yuny

ca. 1294–1279 B.C.

Yuny, shown kneeling, is dressed in the robe, wig, and sandals of a nobleman. His eyes and eye-brows, originally made as inlays, are now lost. Between his knees and outstretched arms he holds a shrine with a figure of the god Osiris. This is one of two statues of Yuny found in or near the tomb-chapel of his father, the chief physician Amenhotep, in the New Kingdom necropolis of Asyut.

Yuny probably commissioned the chapel after his father's death. Graffiti on its walls show that the chapel was a place of pilgrimage in the Ramesside period, perhaps by visitors seeking the intercession of Yuny's father in healing ailments. Although Yuny himself is not called "physician" or "chief physician" on his monuments, he probably followed his father in that occupation, as he did in most of his other offices. On this statue he has the title "overseer of Sakhmet's lay-priests," which indicates his association with the medical profession.

On view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Gallery 130