Detail of a Ram, Tomb of Khnumhotep

Davies employed a precise, line‑based drawing technique to capture the original wall pigment’s tonal contrasts. The ram’s silhouette is filled in solid black, set against a light, unadorned background that isolates the figure. The exaggerated curvature of the horns and the emphasis on mass reflect the artist’s intent to convey both the animal’s physical power and its ritual significance, while remaining faithful to the tomb’s original composition.

The illustration was produced as part of the Davies couple’s extensive field documentation of Egyptian tombs, a project that spanned several decades in the 1900s and 1920s. After its completion, the drawing entered the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it is catalogued as a reference for scholars studying Fifth Dynasty funerary art and the iconography of rams within that period.

The Tomb of Khnumhotep, located at Saqqara, contains a rich program of animal and deity imagery typical of elite Old Kingdom burials. Rams appear frequently in such contexts, often linked to the cult of Khnum and to concepts of regeneration. The drawing therefore provides insight into how ordinary workshop artists rendered these motifs and how modern Egyptologists like the Davieses preserved them for future research.