This wall painting of a marsh hunting scene was part of the decoration of a tomb chapel belonging to Nebamun, an official scribe and grain counter at the temple complex in Thebes during the 18th dynasty, around 1350 BC. Elaborately adorned with vibrant fresco paintings, the tomb's plastered walls depict idealised scenes from Nebamun's life.

In this fragment, Nebamun is shown twice, hunting birds with a throwing stick and spearing fish from reed boats in the marshes of the Nile. He is accompanied by his wife Hatshepsut and their young children and surrounded by the flora and fauna of the wetlands. The intricate details and vivid colours offer a glimpse into the opulence and joy that once filled Nebamun's life, capturing a timeless moment of pleasure and abundance he wanted to last forever.

This is perhaps the most iconic rendition of the 'marsh hunting’ scene within the rich tapestry of ancient Egyptian funerary art. Found on the walls of tombs and tomb chapels, these depictions connected the deceased with the afterlife, emphasised the importance of the natural world and its cycles, and demonstrated control over the chaotic forces of nature.

This fresco is just one of several famous pieces of ancient Egyptian art from Nebamun’s tomb, the precise location of which has been lost. Hacked out of the walls of the tomb by unscrupulous archaeologists and antiquities dealers, the fragments of the chapel’s decoration hint at the magnificence and opulence of the original decoration.

My reconstruction is based on three fragments which Egyptologists have suggested coming from the same painting. Fragment 1 was purchased from Henry Salt in 1821 for the British Museum collection. Fragments 2 and 3 were acquired from antiquities dealers by Moïse Lévy de Benzion, whose collection was sold after his death and then confiscated by the Egyptian government. They were stored in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo but their current location is unknown. They are now only known from catalogue photographs taken in the 1950s.