Detail of the Bucrania Ceiling Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2007

Bucrania ceiling painting from the palace of Amenthotep III

Dynasty 18, ca. 1390-1353 BC
From Thebes, Malkata, MMA Excavations
Painted mud plaster

Accession # 11.215.451

The important buildings in the palace complex of Amenhotep III at Malkata were embellished with floor, wall, and ceiling paintings. This partially restored section of a ceiling painting was discovered lying face up in a room adjacent to the king's bedchamber. The motif consists of a repeating pattern of rosette-filled running spirals alterning with bucrania (ox skulls). Similar ceiling patterns, both painted and modeled in plaster, have been excavated at Aegean sites of a slightly earlier period.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.