 CASE 1
1. Rhomboidal palette
Predynastic Period, Naqada I or later, before 3000 BC
Siltstone
ECM 1866
From the earliest periods of settled life in Egypt, eye paint played an important role in the ritual of bodily adornment for both men and women. This pigment (generally a ground copper ore—malachite) was employed both as a protection and as a beautifying aid, and palettes for its preparation (employing a pebble grinder, commonly of red jasper) generally accompanied their owners to the grave. Clearly of magical as well as practical use, such palettes are among Egypt’s earliest decorated objects, and appear in any number of forms, from geometric to animal. The schematized double-‘bird’ or -‘serpent’ decoration of this elongated rhomboidal specimen, though of uncertain amuletic meaning, presents a powerful and stunningly modern aesthetic.
2. Footed vessel
Predynastic Period, Naqada II, before 3000 BC
Limestone
ECM 1863
3. Footed vessel
Predynastic Period, Naqada II
Basalt
ECM 1864
In the production of vessels from the stones available to them—alabaster, basalt, breccia, diorite, dolorite, limestone and serpentine—the Egyptians early demonstrated an extraordinary mastery. From as early as the fourth millennium BC, an abundance of finely made vessels in a range of types occurs among burials of the Egyptian privileged classes. Some of these vessels were clearly produced solely for funerary use; others were not. The string-holes of the two footed examples displayed here show considerable wear, presumably as a result of the vessels having been suspended, and in use, over an extended period of time.
186. Ripple flaked knife with sheathed handle
Predynastic Period, Naqada II-III, before 3000 BC
Flint and gold
ECM 1874
Ripple-flaked knives of this type—roughly chipped to shape, the surfaces ground smooth and one face then flaked with immense control to produce the effect which gives this object-class its name—were produced over a period of around 200 years from the end of Naqada II into Naqada III. When employed as grave goods they were often broken to prevent reuse and deter robbery of the dead. A number are known with elaborately carved handles of hippopotamus ivory slotted over the tang. Gold foil mountings, as here, are encountered very infrequently.
CASE 2
246. Black-top jar
Predynastic Period, Naqada I-II, before 3000 BC
Pottery
ECM 1871
Like so many Egyptian vessels, this small, beautifully shaped storage jar has a conical base designed for standing in sand rather than on a flat surface. The fabric is a Nile silt, coil-made, with reddish-brown haematite wash and characteristic burnished black top produced by firing inverted in ash in a reducing atmosphere. First identified in 1895 as ‘New Race’ pottery introduced into Egypt following the fall of the Old Kingdom, the prehistoric nature of this and associated wares soon became apparent. A relative dating system for the various Predynastic pottery types was established by the British Egyptologist W.M. Flinders Petrie in 1901.
223. Buff-ware jar with wavy decoration
Predynastic Period, Naqada II, before 3000 BC
Pottery
ECM 1199
253. Buff-ware jar with spiral decoration
Predynastic Period, Naqada II, before 3000 BC
Pottery
ECM 1911
As several of the objects in this exhibition reveal, the Egyptians, from the earliest times, showed a predilection for the reproduction in differing materials of a range of vessel types. The most frequently encountered crossovers are copies in ceramic of more expensive, high-status exemplars in stone, but imitations of other, less valuable materials occur also. Both of the cylinder-handled, marl-ware jars shown here display in applied red what have been recognized as highly schematized renderings of their prototypes—most probably, of basketry and hardstone.
245. Buff-ware jar with ship decoration
Predynastic, Naqada II, before 3000 BC
Pottery
ECM 1868
This large, shouldered jar with vestigial pierced lug handles is a fine example from a well-known series of hand-made, late Predynastic vessels produced in marl clay and decorated, in red, with multi-oared river boats sporting double cabins and divine or tribal standards. There is some evidence to suggest that the type was produced exclusively for funerary use, rather than being, as so often, a domestic form subsequently pressed into use for the tomb
CASE 3
250. Tubular-handled jar
Predynastic Period, Naqada II-Early Dynastic Period, 1st Dynasty, before 2828 BC
Basalt
ECM 1899
The manufacture of stone vessels was extremely time-consuming. Roughly chipped and abraded to a satisfactory external shape, the interior was then hollowed out by means of a crank drill of wood fitted with a bit of flint or some other hard stone (quartzite or limestone for final polishing). Occasionally a tubular drill of copper, employed with a suitable abrasive, was used to begin the hollowing process. Only when the internal shaping had been satisfactorily achieved was external finishing begun.
244. Cylinder jar
Predynastic Period, Naqada III-Early Dynastic Period, 2nd Dynasty, before 2682 BC
Indurated limestone
ECM 1832
The rope decoration in raised relief below the rim of this indurated limestone cylinder jar identifies it as a high-status stone prototype of the mass-produced ceramic vessels with impressed-string decoration which occur at the end of the Predynastic Period through into Early Dynastic times. The choice of a light, marl-clay fabric for the ceramic copies represents a deliberate attempt to capture the light original appearance of these limestone (and Egyptian alabaster) originals. A number of the pottery cylinder-jars have been recovered with their original contents still in place—a sweet, coconut-smelling residue usually identified as a decomposed fat—, and it is likely that the stone versions enjoyed a similar role.
224. Convex-sided bowl
Basalt
Early Dynastic Period, 1st Dynasty-Old Kingdom, 4th Dynasty, before 2479 BC
ECM 1206
183. Convex-sided bowl
Early Dynastic Period, 1st Dynasty-Old Kingdom, 4th Dynasty
Diorite
ECM 1835
Elegant, open-form vessels were produced in a range of types over an extended period from the 1st-4th Dynasties. Such vessels—which seem never to have been intended for daily use—occur in a range of funerary and votive contexts, and at sites like Saqqara have been recovered in their thousands. The quality of these Early Dynastic vessels is hardly ever less than superb, often employing rare and valuable stone such as ‘Chephren diorite’, the material of the smaller bowl—a beautifully mottled, slightly translucent rock otherwise employed only for the best and most important sculptural works.
CASE 4
185. Statue of Anuy son of Sithathor
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, probably reigns of Amenemhat II-Senwosret II, 1914-1872 BC
Granite
ECM 1855
The subject of this small, black granite ‘block statue’—which was prepared either for the owner’s tomb or for dedication at a shrine—is identified by a vertical column of hieroglyphs lightly incised down the front of the figure and ending between the feet: ‘The steward Anuy, son of Sithathor’. He is otherwise unknown. The carving of the piece is rudimentary, and the face in itself offers no significant clue as to the figure’s precise attribution—though the period Amenemhat II-Senwosret II (when the abstracted ‘block statue’ format was first introduced) seems likely.
10. Upper part of the figure of a man
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, reign of Senwosret III, 1872-1853/2 BC
Painted wood
ECM 1474
This beautifully carved element from a composite sculpture demonstrates well the advantages of working in more tractable wood, which allowed the sculptor far greater freedom in his compositions and detail in the finish. The surface of the statuette is coated with a thin wash of reddish-brown pigment, with details highlighted in white and black. The figure is of the type usually placed within or beside the coffin—a repository for the owner’s ka or spirit should the body itself be destroyed. The furrows of the face and brow, and the intricate detail of the ears and hands, are perhaps influenced by the royal ‘portraiture’ of King Senwosret III and his immediate successors of the 12th Dynasty, to which period this piece is usually assigned.
106. Oarsman
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, 1976-1794/3 BC
Gessoed and painted wood
ECM 218
190. Oarsman
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, 1976-1794/3 BC
Gessoed and painted wood
ECM 1915
These two wooden figures, each with its paint remarkably well-preserved, represent elements from the crew(s) of one or more of the pair of wooden model boats—which must here have been of exceptional size—placed, along with other funerary models, in the tombs of wealthy individuals from the First Intermediate Period down until the Middle Kingdom. Such boats had both a practical and a magical function—to enable the deceased to undertake the required pilgrimage to Abydos, focus of the Osiris cult, as well as to metaphorically convey him from this world into the Afterlife.
CASE 5
8. Pectoral ornament
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, probably reign of Senwosret II or Senwosret III, 1882-1853/2 BC
Probably from Dahshur
Electrum, with remains of lapis lazuli, jasper and feldspar inlays
ECM 1585
9. Wire finger ring with scarab
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, probably reign of Senwosret II or Senwosret III, 1882-1853/2 BC
Probably from Dahshur
Gold and amethyst
ECM 1846
This exquisite pectoral—or pendant breast-ornament—was broken into two sections at the time of its discovery, sections which were sold separately before 1895 and reunited at Eton only in 1921. Because of this rough treatment, most of the colourful, cloisonné inlays which originally decorated the outer face of the jewel —each colour of significance in the overall scheme of the work—are now lost, though the finely chased decoration on the jewel’s reverse preserves the detail of the decorative scheme. The central element has been thought to contain an allusion to Sithathor, a daughter of Senwosret II whose anciently robbed burial (with its hidden cache of jewellery) was excavated at Dahshur by Jacques de Morgan in 1894. If so, the pectoral doubtless represents a stray from that plundered tomb. Other likely finds from this cemetery, also at Eton, is a series of scarabs of Wadi el-Hudi amethyst—a material which appears for the first time in the Middle Kingdom, only to disappear again until Roman times. The specimen shown here was set in antiquity as a ring on carefully knotted gold wire.
17. Bowl with the names of Sebekhotep IV
Middle Kingdom, 13th Dynasty, reign of Sebekhotep IV, 1794/3-1648/45 BC
From Thebes (Asasif?)
Faience
ECM 1475
This simple but graceful cup echoes in a more precious material the common pottery drinking vessel of the late Middle Kingdom. Made of faience, the piece is distinguished by a striking blue glaze and, beneath the rim, by a band of hieroglyphic inscription in manganese black which records the names and titulary of King Sebekhotep IV of the 13th Dynasty. Presumably the cup had been placed as a mark of royal favour in the grave of a well-to-do official of this king, located somewhere in the rich cemetery-site of Asasif at Thebes where the vessel is said to have been found.
222. Black-topped Kerma beaker
Middle Kingdom, 13th Dynasty, 1794/3-1648/45 BC
Pottery
ECM 857
The most frequently encountered form of Nubian Kerma ware in Egypt is the beaker, or drinking cup. Hand- rather than wheel-made, these technically superb vessels are characterized by exceedingly thin walls and a sophisticated firing technique. This technique permitted production of a glossy black rim reminiscent of that seen in Egyptian black-top pottery of the Predynastic Period, but separated from the red of the body by a deliberately induced white band. The reason for the presence in Egypt of such delicate Nubian wares—which must have been immensely difficult to transport—remains unexplained.
18. Façade of a shrine with the names of Thutmose II and Hatshepsut
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Hatshepsut, 1479/3-1458/7 BC
Probably from Thebes (Deir el-Bahri)
Painted wood
ECM 1888
This carved and painted façade appears to represent the front portion of a small, privately dedicated shrine. The lintel inscription contains the Horus-name of Hatshepsut—the best known to history of those very few women who occupied the ancient Egyptian throne. The side jambs carry the cartouches of Thutmose II, Hatshepsut’s (deceased) husband—a personage with whom the queen rarely associated herself. The deities invoked in the text are Amun, ‘Overlord of the Two Lands’, and Hathor, ‘Lady of Dendera’—a combination suggesting that the complete shrine and its now lost statue may originally have been dedicated at Hatshepsut’s well-known Deir el-Bahri temple, among the ruins of which many hundreds of ex votos have been found.
226. Ball (bead?)
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty or earlier, before 1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1377
Large faience ball beads of this type, the segmentation physically incised and/or simply highlighted in black, are common finds from Deir el-Bahri and the site of Queen Hatshepsut’s funerary temple—where, it has been suggested, a workshop to produce them may once have existed. The context suggests that the beads had been offered as ex votos, either singly or in graduated strings, at the shrine of the cow-goddess Hathor. As with all such shrines, as and when the build-up of votive material became too great the offerings were simply swept out and buried—to the benefit of archaeologists today.
184. Lidded box
Middle Kingdom, probably 12th Dynasty, 1976-1794/3 BC
Faience
ECM 1852
The construction of this rectangular faience box—conceivably a model coffin intended to contain a mummiform shawabti-figure—is unique in that it is assembled from deliberately cut, bevel-edged plaques (glazed only on their outer face). The date offered here is based upon glaze and coffin type, but in the absence of parallels and of any indication of an original findspot and context the piece could be somewhat earlier or later in date.
12. String of graduated spherical beads
Middle Kingdom, 12th-13th Dynasty, 1976-1648/5 BC
Faience
ECM 1853
These heavy spherical beads are arranged as a graduated necklace, of a sort worn by both men and women during the Middle Kingdom and not infrequently embellished with large silver or electrum ‘caps’ at the point of piercing. Such beads are encountered worn suspended from the head in an artificial braid or, in the case of dancing girls, attached individually to the ends of the hair. The association with hair, and the employment in the context of dance, seems to indicate that such beads were not merely decorative but imbued with deeper associations of sensuality and fertility.
CASE 6
7. Sistrum element with the names of Senwosret I
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, reign of Senwosret I, 1956-1911/10 BC
From Thebes
Glazed steatite
ECM 1588
This magnificent double-sided mask of the goddess Bat—a manifestation of Hathor, goddess of love and music—comes from a sistrum or rattle employed in temple ritual to attract the attention of the divinity and mark rhythm in the proceedings. Exquisitely carved in steatite, richly glazed and with copper-framed, inlaid eyes, it represents an object of exceptional quality and status. The inscriptions on the brow on each side are those of King Senwosret I, who dedicated the object for cultic use at one of the temples embellished during his reign in southern Upper Egypt—not improbably the Theban cult center of Hathor herself, on the west bank at Deir el-Bahri. The instrument-type—a more complete specimen of which may be seen elsewhere in this exhibition—continued in use throughout Egyptian history, down into the Roman Period and beyond.
CASE 7
194. Face mask from a mummy
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, 1976-1794/3 BC
Gilded cartonnage
ECM 2165
Masks of this peculiarly small type are far from common, but they seem first to occur during the Middle Kingdom, tied in place over the face of the fully wrapped mummy. The type is found again much later, at Nuri and in the Southern Cemetery at Meroe, in high-status burials of the 7th century BC. The Nubian specimens are in silver; this earlier example is made of extremely high quality gilded cartonnage—a sort of linen ‘paper mâché’—with contrasting decoration in dark pigment.
11. Doll with beaded hair
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, 1976-1794/3 BC
From Beni Hasan (tomb 420)
Linen thread and faience
ECM 1843
The body of this charming piece is formed from tightly bound and perfectly preserved white linen thread, with hair indicated by clusters of small beads of brilliant blue, vitrified faience. The British Egyptologist John Garstang, who recovered it from a tomb at Beni Hasan in Middle Egypt between 1902-04, believed it to be a child’s plaything. He did, however, acknowledge that some scholars might be tempted to see in it a deeper significance—that is, as a broadly regenerative funerary image or ‘concubine’, despite the absence of any sexual emphases in the modelling.
13. Baboon
Middle Kingdom, 13th Dynasty, 1794/3-1648/45 BC
Faience
ECM 723
14. Crocodile
Middle Kingdom, 13th Dynasty, 1794/3-1648/45 BC
Faience
ECM 742
Faience—in Egyptian, tjehenet, ‘that which glitters’—was of particular significance to the ancients, its characteristic blue-green colour redolent of fresh shoots and rebirth and its shiny, reflective surface recalling that of the sun itself. These two figures belong to a particular class of miniature sculptures in faience excavated from, and seemingly made exclusively for, burials of the late Middle Kingdom. These figures share a common theme: order, which is expressed by the control of its opposite, the disorderly, marginal or feared—here, in the baboon and crocodile, the wilds beyond man’s control.
15. Head of a dwarf
Middle Kingdom, 13th Dynasty, 1794/3-1648/45 BC
Faience
ECM 495
16. Dwarf with an animal
Middle Kingdom, 13th Dynasty, 1794/3-1648/45 BC
Faience
ECM 1841
Dwarfs, for the Egyptians, occupied the uncertain middle ground between the mortal and the divine, and images of them were commonly placed in later Middle Kingdom tombs. Their presence was intended not only to ensure the eternal survival of the services they discharged in life (such as ritual dancing), but, again, to invoke control over the forces of disorder. The detached head, with its frontal distortion, is not a fragment but an intact, independent object—possibly a gaming piece. The freestanding figure represents a dwarf-servant, who is either kissing a puppy or—curious to our eyes—suckling an orphaned pig, a process encountered in two dimensions in a famous scene in the tomb of Kagemni at Saqqara.
CASE 8
4. Offering bearer
Late Old Kingdom, before 2145 BC
From Meir (tomb of Hapikem, A4)
Gessoed and painted wood
ECM 1591
Economically, the provision of groups of painted wooden models to ensure the continued presence in the Beyond of the deceased’s servants and companions was far more efficient than the commissioning of scenes in painted relief on the walls of a rock-cut tomb or stone-built chapel. Consequently, from the late Old Kingdom on, a wider range of such models begin to be encountered in the archaeological record. This exceptionally well-preserved offering-bearer statue is the earliest datable example of its type known. The single column of hieroglyphic text on the lid of the casket identifies the burial from which it came as that of the ‘Seal-bearer of the King of Lower Egypt, Sole Companion, Overseer of Priests, the Revered One, Hapikem’. Hapikem’s tomb (A4) was excavated at Meir in Middle Egypt during the early 1890s, by Georges Daressy and Alessandro Barsanti working on behalf of the Giza Museum—precursor of the present Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
CASE 9
5. Statue of Mesehty
Early Middle Kingdom, 11th Dynasty, 2119-1976 BC
From Asyut (tomb of Mesehty)
Wood, with remains of gesso and paint
ECM 2167
196. Staff of Mesehty
Early Middle Kingdom, 11th Dynasty, 2119-1976 BC
From Asyut (tomb of Mesehty)
Wood
ECM 2168
Mesehty was a provincial nomarch (district governor) of the early Middle Kingdom, Seal-bearer of the King and Overseer of the Priests of Wepwawet. His tomb was found by locals digging in the early Middle Kingdom cemetery at Asyut in 1893 or before, the most famous of the objects recovered from the burial at this time being two squads of bodyguard troops—one Egyptian, one Nubian—now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Within Mezsehty’s coffin will have been placed the walking staff displayed here, which shows clear evidence of use in life. The statuette is one of the principal images from the tomb assemblage—a representation of Mesehty himself, shown as a mature man in a long, triangular-fronted kilt. The sculpture will have been intended as a repository for the ka, or spiritual essence, of the deceased.
182. Battle axe blade
First Intermediate Period-Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, before 1794/3 BC
Bronze
ECM 1829
105. Battle axe
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, 1976-1794/3 BC
Bronze and wood
ECM 208
Several different types of battle axe were employed over the three millennia span of Egyptian civilization. The two displayed here are formally classified as ‘segmental’ and ‘tanged’. The former makes its appearance in the First Intermediate Period, and extends in use throughout the Middle Kingdom—which is the date of production of the latter. Both axes are substantial weapons, with thick, blunt-edged blades intended not to cut but to deliver a crushing blow to an adversary’s skull or body. Of particular interest is the well-preserved haft of the earlier axe, upon which impressions of the lashing which originally secured the blade can be clearly seen. Deep chop-marks in the wood suggest that the weapon saw actual use during the troubled times in which it was carried.
6. Pendant with the name of King Senwosret
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, reign of Senwosret I, 1956-1911/10 BC
Oyster shell
ECM 1844
Over fifty specimens of these handsome pendants have been recorded. Fashioned from oyster shells of Red Sea origin, the outer surface has in each case been ground down and polished to reveal the mother-of-pearl lining, with two holes drilled for suspension and a cartouched kingly prenomen (or nomen) inscribed on the outer surface. The names generally encountered are those of Senwosret I, but examples are known bearing the names of Amenemhat II and Senwosret III. Whether such pendants are to be recognized as military awards or unit badges (as the context of some specimens might suggest), or as more generally amuletic in character, remains uncertain.
CASE 10
157. Design scarab
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, 1976-1794/3 BC
Steatite
ECM 1628
153. Scarab with two crocodiles design
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, 1976-1794/3 BC
Steatite
ECM 1623
154. Scarab with goose of Amun
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Steatite
ECM 1624
155. Scarab with scene of king before Amun
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Steatite
ECM 1625
156. Scarab with Menkheperre as striding sphinx
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Steatite
ECM 1626
158. Scarab with scorpion and fish design
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Steatite
ECM 1629
160. Scarab with prenomen of Amenhotep III
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep III, 1388-1351/50 BC
Steatite
ECM 1644
Small, personal amulets are today among the most frequently encountered Egyptian antiquities, and those amulets which take the form of the scarab beetle (Scarabaeus sacer) are the commonest of all—and for a good reason. The scarab beetle rolling its eggs in a ball of dung, the appearance of new life from dead earth was seen by the Egyptians as a perfect metaphor for the rebirth to which all Egyptians aspired. In life, therefore, as well as in death, scarab amulets represented an immensely powerful talisman, and were carried by one and all. Each of the amulets shown here is individually fashioned—not moulded or otherwise mass-produced—and the perfection of the best carved among them is truly remarkable.
58. Hedgehog scaraboid
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1727
There are no surviving ancient inscriptions to explain the significance of the hedgehog in Egyptian art and belief (beyond certain ‘medical’ texts which suggest the efficacy of hedgehog oil as a cure for baldness), but the creature’s resistance to poison would have made it a natural amuletic motif. The glaze of this scaraboid-seal, with undersurface carrying an elegant, incised S-spiral with lotus-bud terminals, is bichromatic, with green glaze applied over a base blue on the rear half of the animal to define the area of its spines. The creature’s ears are pierced to carry earrings.
40. Marriage scarab
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenotep III, 1388-1351/50 BC
Blue-glazed steatite
ECM 1480
41. Lion-hunt scarab
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep III, 1388-1351/50 BC
Green-glazed steatite
ECM 1641
The reign of Amenhotep III was unique in its issue of a limited series of five large, hand-carved ‘historical’ scarabs recording the principal events of the king’s first ten years of rule. The two specimens shown here—among the finest extant—are the so-called ‘marriage scarab’ and ‘lion-hunt scarab’. The former served to publicize the identity of his new queen, Tiye, and unexpectedly records the names of her commoner parents, Yuya and Tjuyu. The lion-hunt type, as a demonstration of his power over the forces of nature, records the number of lions killed by pharaoh during this first decade—102.
159. Large scarab of Amenhotep III
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep III, 1388-1351/50 BC
Blue-glazed steatite
ECM 1642
The reign of Amenhotep III is remarkable not only for the production of large-scale commemorative scarabs bearing ‘historical’ texts, but also for the issue of a medium-format series of beetle-shaped amulets which typically proclaim the king’s prenomen and an appropriate epithet—here ‘beloved of Amun-Re’ (king of the gods). The purpose behind the issue is unknown.
147. Heart scarab
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Nephrite
ECM 1552
From the late New Kingdom on it was the custom in Egypt to place within the wrappings of the mummy, over the heart—the seat of human intellect—, a large scarab whose purpose is defined in the extract from Book of the Dead Chapter 30B inscribed on its base: not to testify against the deceased when he declares his innocence before the divine tribunal on the day of judgement. The first line of this scarab, where one would normally expect to find the deceased’s name, is blank; moreover, it is ground down significantly lower than the rest of the hieroglyphic text. Clearly the name has been erased—indicating that the piece was reused at least once in antiquity, a not uncommon phenomenon.
65. Heart scarab of Nesgeregtawy
Third Intermediate Period, 21st-22nd Dynasty, before 736 BC
Probably from Thebes
Faience
ECM 1606
The name of this heart scarab’s ancient lady owner was Nesgeregtawy, a ‘chantress of the gods’. The name form, the material, and the overall style of the amulet (in particular its delicate undercutting) point to a Third Intermediate Period date for the piece. The original findspot is unknown, but was perhaps Western Thebes. Nesgeregtawy herself appears to be otherwise unknown.
90. Heart scarab
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
Nephrite
ECM 1713
This beautifully modeled heart scarab, carved with immense care in quite exquisite detail, in its material conforms precisely with the green-coloured stone specified for use in the Book of the Dead. Representing the seat of all human emotions and the source of all physical action, the magical heart was one of the most important amulets placed on the mummified body. A crucial role, one might think—but such pieces were frequently bought ‘off the shelf’ and here, as usual in Late Period examples, left uninscribed so that the name of the ancient owner is now lost to us.
CASE 11
117. Canopic jar lid
Painted pottery
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
ECM 501
118. Canopic jar lid
Painted pottery
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
ECM 502
236. Canopic jar lid
Faience
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty or later, after 1550 BC
ECM 1562
Mummification was a complex process practiced from earliest dynastic times by specialists who raised the technique to extraordinary heights of perfection. A basic key to success was the removal, for separate treatment, of the more corruptible of the internal organs. These were placed in canopic jars—generally of stone, but occasionally of pottery, faience or even wood. Each of these containers was surmounted by a lid taking the form of the relevant protective genius. In the Middle and early New Kingdoms all canopic-jar stoppers presented the same, human aspect—as with the two painted-pottery examples shown here. During the New Kingdom, the individual lids began to be distinguished: human headed—Imsety; falcon headed—Qebehsenuef; ape headed—Hapy; and, as in the splendid faience specimen shown here, dog headed—Duamutef.
43. Gaming piece in the form of a bound captive
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1929
Games of chance dominated leisure time in Egyptian antiquity, with Tutankhamun taking to the tomb with him some four different sets. New Kingdom game boards are most often marked out in a grid of 20 or 30 squares, the 30-square game of senet in time coming to symbolize the interaction of skill and fate in securing a good afterlife. These bloodless conflicts of skill were often given a military flavour, and associated with the fight for divine order against the enemies of kingship. The gaming piece shown here takes the form of an Asiatic enemy who—though shown grasping a bow and arrow—has been rendered harmless by the binding of his arms.
134. Openwork inlaid wedjat-eye
New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty or later, after 1292 BC
Faience
ECM 842
168. Openwork wedjat-eye
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/45-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1684
Wedjat, the Egyptian name applied to the eye of the falcon-god Horus, translates as ‘that which is whole’ or ‘uninjured’. The allusion is to the magically restored eye which had been torn during combat from the face of Horus (a metaphor for the reigning king, the upholder of cosmic order) by Seth, murderer of Osiris (a metaphor for chaos). Although wedjat amulets are among the most familiar of Egypt’s magical charms and common funerary amulets, the two specimens shown here are unusually large and fine.
44. Shawabti of the oasis governor Nebmehyt
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1388-1351/50 BC
From Abydos
Limestone
ECM 1657
45. Shawabti of the oasis governor Nebmehyt
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1388-1351/50 BC
From Abydos
Faience
ECM 375
From the late Middle Kingdom down to Ptolemaic times the deceased commonly took with him to the tomb first one and subsequently many more of the small figures called shawabti—their magical purpose to carry out on the dead person’s behalf any manual labour he or she might be called upon to perform in the Next Life. Occasionally, as here, such figures were deposited during the owner’s lifetime, at key sacred sites such as Abydos—cult centre of Osiris, lord of the Underworld. The donor of the two shawabti displayed here was Nebmehyt, governor of (Kharga?) Oasis, who evidently made a pilgrimage to the city of Osiris, where they were found, around the time of Amenhotep III.
46. Shawabti of the scribe May
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty or later, after 1550 BC
Faience
ECM 378
The short hieroglyphic text inscribed on the front of this small shawabti figure identifies the owner as the scribe May, his title prefixed by the epithet ‘the Osiris’, lord of the Underworld—the god who was magically revived by his sister Isis after having been murdered by his jealous brother Seth. Osiris is here invoked so that the shawabti owner might share in the resurrection achieved by the dead god. The material of the figure is blue faience—here of a hue intended to evoke the most precious of stones.
113. Shawabti of Sitamun
New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, 1292-1186/85 BC
Painted limestone
ECM 414
An important facet of the funeral ceremony, rarely commented upon, was the lavish application of precious unguents to the mummy and to a range of the deceased’s funerary items—in the tomb of Tutankhamun, to seriously deleterious effect. This 19th Dynasty painted limestone shawabti-figure of the lady Sitamun illustrates the practice clearly, with the black, life-bestowing resin poured freely over the head with no concern as to its obliteration of the face and details beneath. The figure itself, though mummiform, wears a heavy wig of daily life, and grasps in its hands not the usual agricultural implements but powerful amuletic talismans, thus combining in a single figure the characteristics of both worker figure and ka-image.
CASE 12
20. Cosmetic tube with the names of Amenhotep II
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep II, 1428-1397 BC
Faience
ECM 1631
The body of this superb, palm-shaped cosmetic vessel carries the cartouches of Amenhotep II and a three-line panel of hieroglyphic text proclaiming the king’s physical and military prowess: ‘O perfect god in all truth, the sovereign, life! prosperity! health! one in whom there is no boasting, son of Amun, beloved of Montu, champion of all the gods as one whom Amun created of his own body; he has granted you victory such as no king has achieved since the first moment of creation’. Below this inscription two teams of chariot horses are shown, with, extraordinarily, the actual name of each horse given: ‘Amun-is-before-him’; ‘The-good-leader’; ‘The-one-who-is-great-beneath-his-legs’; and ‘Inheritance-of-Amun’. The horse was first imported into Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, and proved essential for the combat in which the pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty were actively involved in Syria-Palestine.
140. Pair of mummy soles
Ptolemaic Period, after 323 BC
Cartonnage
ECM 1322
The traditional image of the king trampling the foreign nations of the outside world—Egypt’s traditional enemies—is here transferred from the realm of pharaoh to that of commoner. With these painted soles attached to his mummy, every step the deceased took would symbolically crush underfoot the powers of chaos and confusion and everything hostile to the Egyptian way of life which might impede rebirth.
60. Necropolis seal matrix
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty or later, after 1550 BC
Faience
ECM 1481
The motif of a crouching jackal over nine bound captives—a representation of Egypt’s enemies, suitably controlled to ensure the stability of the cosmos—is generally recognized as that employed by the official necropolis during the New Kingdom. Though most famously encountered in the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, in fact its geographical range extends well beyond the Theban borders. The provenance of the Eton seal matrix—which is surely amuletic rather than functional in character—is unrecorded, and its general attribution to the 18th Dynasty little more than an educated guess; it could easily be somewhat later in date.
161. Ring with name of Ramesses II
New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, reign of Ramesses II, 1279-1213 BC
Bronze
ECM 1654
Because of his shameless self-aggrandisement, willfully carving his name over those of his predecessors and upon any uninscribed surface he found, Ramesses II is today one of Egypt’s best known and most celebrated kings. This stirrup-shaped bronze ring, bearing on its flattened bezel the hieroglyphs of the king’s prenomen, will have been issued by the State to a minor official required to seal documents and other items in Pharaoh’s name. Higher ranking officials will have been issued with similar rings in more precious metals—silver, and gold.
62. Scarab with the name of Ramesses II
New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, reign of Ramesses II, 1279-1213 BC
Faience
ECM 1656
Large-scale scarab-shaped funerary amulets inscribed with anything other than a version of Chapter 30B of the Book of the Dead or a related text are rare, and their precise function uncertain. It is possible that the scarab shown here, carrying a version of the nomen of Ramesses II (‘Ramessu-beloved-of-Amun’), was one which had originally been bandaged in with the king’s mummy (recovered from the Deir el-Bahri cache) as part of his amuletic funerary equipment. Certainly, Myers appears to have been present at the unwrapping of one or more of the royal mummies, and had been presented with several specimens of textiles which had been removed from the kingly dead at that time.
247. Tile with rekhyt-bird
New Kingdom, 20th Dynasty, reign of Ramesses III, 1183/2-1152/1 BC
Faience
ECM 1879
This elaborate faience tile undoubtedly comes from the 20th Dynasty palace of Ramesses III at Tell el-Yahudiya, a site in the Delta from which Myers acquired a number of decorative faience wall inlays. The subject-matter, examples of which exist in other collections around the world, is a rekhyt-bird, representing the people of Egypt—generally shown juxtaposed with the royal cartouche, towards which the birds, their human hands raised, offer adoration.
57. Broad-collar terminal of Tutankhamun
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Tutankhamun, 1333-1323 BC
Faience
ECM 1887
Egyptian collar terminals are encountered in a variety of shapes, the type seen here being asymmetrical—curved at the top and (when complete) flattened at the bottom, a characteristic late 18th Dynasty form. The material is a pale green faience, now lacking much of its original glaze but displaying an interesting and uncommon mix of techniques: raised relief for the king himself and a column of incised hieroglyphs which identify him as ‘The perfect god, lord of the Two Lands, Nebkheprure (Tutankhamun) …’. The king wears the blue crown, and is shown drinking from a white lotus chalice similar to the specimens exhibited elsewhere in this exhibition.
CASE 13
24. Two-handled flask
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1340 BC
Pale blue glass (discoloured), with applied decoration in darker blue and white
ECM 1589
25. Miniature two-handled flask
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, after 1550 BC
Faience
ECM 1620
Both of these flasks appear to be modeled on Mycenaean pottery forms, imported into Egypt in quantity during the second half of the 18th Dynasty as containers for some sort of precious liquid. Native Egyptian copies of the type are restricted to the reigns of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten—in glass and faience, as here, and also in Egyptian alabaster. The function of these Egyptian specimens will similarly have been as containers of local and imported festive oils—a function to which the lotus garland of the smaller specimen perhaps alludes. The type later reappears—in the Late Period as a New Year’s gift, during Christian times as the so-called ‘pilgrim flask’ employed to transport holy water gathered at the shrine of a saint.
37. Stirrup jar
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty or later, after 1550 BC
Faience
ECM 1632
38. Rhyton
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1633
As illustrated elsewhere in this exhibition, the Egyptian craftsman was accustomed to reproducing, in a variety of native materials, a range of those vessel-forms which intruded into his closed world from outside the Nile Valley. The stirrup jar was a Mycenaean pottery type, imported in great quantities during the late 18th Dynasty and particularly under Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. Although the jar’s content (we guess a form of precious, scented oil) was the important element, as this and other imitations in faience reveal the Egyptian fascination was equally with the container and its peculiar form; similarly with the funnel-shaped pottery rhyton—another contemporary foreign form (guessed, from the perforated base, to be a ritualistic sprinkler)—here again reproduced in local faience.
205. Vessel fragment with rishi (‘feathered’) decoration
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep III, 1388-1351/50 BC
From Thebes (Valley of the Kings, tomb of Amenhotep III, WV 22)
Faience
ECM 5
206. Vessel fragment with rishi (‘feathered’) decoration
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep III, 1388-1351/50 BC
From Thebes (Valley of the Kings, tomb of Amenhotep III, WV 22)
Faience
ECM 6
The tomb of Amenhotep III is located in an annexe of the Valley of the Kings known as the West Valley, and was once one of the richest burials in Egypt. The rubble-filled interior has been raked over by both locals and a steady stream of tourists for more than two centuries—bringing on to the market various fragmented elements of the tomb’s original funerary equipment. Among the glaze highlights are these fine fragments of white, rishi (feather)-decorated faience—broken ritual vessels whose findspot may be established from similar, well-provenanced fragments in Brussels and elsewhere. The 18th Dynasty witnessed the introduction of a whole new palette of colours employed in the production of Egyptian faience, previously produced only in shades of blue and green.
208. Broad-collar terminal
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1340 BC
Egyptian blue
ECM 92
One of the commonest items of personal adornment in ancient Egypt—seen everywhere in ancient sculpture, reliefs and paintings—is the heavy, beaded collar known as wesekh, ‘the broad one’. The wesekh in fact imitates in faience (and other, more precious materials) a floral neck garland, actual examples of which have been found associated with the burial of Tutankhamun. The traditional terminals to these collars are semi-circular plaques—usually encountered today in faience, but here modelled in the more precious and striking vitreous material known as ‘Egyptian blue’.
42. Syrian(?) head
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty or later, after 1550 BC
From Thebes
Shell, with stone and glass inlays
ECM 820
The exotic materials employed to fashion this small but spectacular head identify it as an object of high status and importance. Carved from the central core of a Red Sea shell and richly inlaid with coloured glass (and perhaps other more precious materials, now lost), the style of the work is clearly foreign and most probably Levantine. Curiously, Myers acquired it (in November 1887) in the Luxor area. It perhaps functioned as the head-shaped stopper of a horn containing precious oil—similar to those seen carried by Syrians as tribute for pharaoh in a number of Theban tomb scenes.
220. Amphora-neck(?) fragment with applied marguerites
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, Amarna Period, circa 1340 BC
Faience
ECM 807
No close parallels to this extraordinary vessel fragment are known. The applied faience marguerites, arranged in steep diagonal bands of one-row-white and three-rows-blue, mark it out as a product of the 18th Dynasty, and more specifically of the Amarna Period and the reign of Akhenaten when experimentation in every area of applied arts was the norm.
237. Tile fragment with papyrus
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, Amarna Period, circa 1340 BC
Faience
ECM 1650
The official and private buildings of Akhenaten’s new city at El-Amarna were abundantly decorated in an extraordinarily free, naturalistic style with murals, tiles and inlays. Excavation in the 1930s at the site of the official residence of the High Priest Panehesy produced a number of fragments of faience tiles clearly from the same or a similar series as that shown here. The broken edges of the fragment show clearly the granular core of the ware, quite distinct from true glass and Egyptian blue, in both of which the base colour extends uniformly throughout the fabric.
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82. Head of a Nubian woman
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 822
119. Head of a (Nubian) woman
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 543
Faience figurines and wands with characteristic black-spotted decoration first appeared in the Third Intermediate Period, their function related to fertility and protection during childbirth. Predominantly of Delta manufacture and origin (with workshops identified at Tanis, Bubastis and elsewhere), they comprise variations on a restricted range of themes: the god Bes, a vervet monkey, or a standing (Nubian) woman. The two Myers heads come from large and well-modelled examples of the third of these types—the former with the cruciform hair and dramatically exaggerated features often seen in such genre figures, the latter with a more conventional coiffure and gentler, though scarified (or tattooed) face.
CASE 14
63. Winged scarab, winged Nut, and Four Sons of Horus
New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty or later, after 1292 BC
From Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 817 (scarab), 1478 (Nut), 1593, 1594, 1595, 1596 (Sons of Horus)
This spectacular set of funerary amulets was intended to provide powerful protection for the deceased whose mummy it embellished—the solar scarab and sky goddess Nut spreading their wings over the breast, and the four Sons of Horus safeguarding the internal organs. The group is in fact identical to other sets of mummy amulets in the British Museum, London, and in the Berlin Museum—the latter acquired by the German Egyptologist Max Reinhardt at Tuna el-Gebel. The precise dating is uncertain, but style, colour and technique suggest that the elements are to be assigned to the Ramessid Period.
112. Shawabti of Painedjem I
Third Intermediate Period, 21st Dynasty, circa 1000 BC
From Thebes (Deir el-Bahri royal cache, tomb DB 320)
Faience
ECM 398
150. Shawabti of Henttawy
Third Intermediate Period, 21st Dynasty, circa 1000 BC
From Thebes (Deir el-Bahri royal cache, tomb DB 320)
Faience
ECM 1605
The first cache of royal mummies and high priests was brought to light at Deir el-Bahri in 1881 after several years of uncontrolled exploitation of the find by Theban locals. Egyptologists were alerted to the discovery by the appearance, on the Luxor and Cairo antiquities markets, of a mass of objects which could only have come from a tomb. These included shawabti-figures of the type shown here—prepared for the burials of the High Priest of Amun, Painedjem I (whose name is enclosed in a cartouche to reflect his enhanced status), and the lady Henttawy, his wife. The brilliant colour of the faience from this cache and from the neighbouring tomb Bab el-Gasus is truly remarkable, inspiring the term ‘Deir el-Bahri blue’.
64. Four cups from the burial of Neskhonsu
Third Intermediate Period, 21st Dynasty, circa 1000 BC
From Thebes (Deir el-Bahri royal cache, tomb DB 320)
Faience
ECM 1677, 1678, 1679, 1680
These four closely similar vessels, moulded in faience and with an applied, brilliant blue glaze, were among the plentiful 21st Dynasty grave goods which accompanied the royal and priestly mummies in the first royal cache. The inscriptions on each cup, differing slightly in detail, record that they had been prepared for the burial of Neskhonsu, chief of the harem of Amun, and wife of the high priest of Amun, Painedjem II. The burial of this lady took place in Year 5 of King Siamun’s reign, as recorded in an inscription found in the DB 320 tomb.
111. Overseer shawabti of Hori
Third Intermediate Period, 21st Dynasty, circa 1000 BC
From Bab el-Gasus (Deir el-Bahri priests’ cache, tomb DB B)
Faience
ECM 395
This shawabti of the prophet Hori, in ‘Deir el-Bahri blue’ faience, comes not from the cache of royal mummies but from another mass-burial of the period—that of the Amun priests, in a tomb known as Bab el-Gasus, situated to the north of the lower court of Hatshepsut’s temple. The long, triangular-fronted kilt of daily life, and whip, mark the figure out as an ‘overseer’ shawabti, in charge of 10 mummiform ‘worker’ figures.
CASE 15
139. Amulet of a child-god
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1340 BC
Red faience
ECM 1120
The New Kingdom date of this flat-backed faience pendant is proclaimed by its distinctive red glaze, which was first employed in the late 18th Dynasty during the reigns of Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaten. It is a particularly appropriate colour for its subject-matter—Re of Heliopolis, shown crouching, finger to mouth, childlike, manifestation of the new sun reborn each day at dawn.
59. Baboon of Thoth
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1350 BC
Egyptian blue
ECM 722
126. Baboon of Thoth
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 755
Thoth was the divine patron of learning, and figures of the god in his manifestation as a baboon are commonly encountered in a scribal context—presumably to receive the writer’s offerings and inspire his written words. The larger of the baboon figures shown here is particularly well modelled in the powdery artificial compound known as ‘Egyptian blue’—the same intensely coloured material which, when ground, was employed as a pigment. The second, smaller figure of the god, though modest in its detail, is even more charmingly rendered and from its size clearly amuletic in character.
120. Ibis-headed Thoth
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 625
The colour of the glaze and the modeling mark out this ibis-headed ex voto as a product of the Third Intermediate Period faience. Now broken off below the shendyt-kilt, the complete figure was originally shown in the familiar striding pose, left foot to the fore to demonstrate freedom of movement. The god’s ibis head wears a pharaonic wig cover surmounted by an elaborate atef-crown, while in his hands he holds a wedjat-eye.
225. Bes pot
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Pottery
ECM 1339
The bandy-legged dwarf-god Bes, with his leonine face and characteristic feather headdress, was one of the principal protectors of the Egyptian family and home. More frequently encountered in amuletic form, his image—reduced to the basics of animal ears and protruding tongue—here wittily decorate a red-ware pot with additional detail added in red slip.
124. Cat on a papyrus column
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 645
133. Cat on a papyrus column
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 841
The Third Intermediate Period dating of these two, closely similar faience amulets is in part suggested by the glaze, in part by the iconography—the cat being the sacred animal of the goddess Bastet, lady of Bubastis, whose worship flourished under the 22nd Dynasty kings who originated from this city. Such amulets were doubtless offered for sale to pilgrims at the shrine of the goddess, for retention as personal talismans or for offering up to the goddess with a prayer as modest offerings by those who sought divine favour.
145. Amulet of Hathor
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1537
At this date, the bovine horns which surmount the figure’s circular serpent diadem offer a clear indication that the goddess represented in this large, ex voto faience figure is Hathor, goddess of love and beauty. Hathor was also the divine nurse of pharaoh—as shown in the small Hathor shrine from Deir el-Bahri where the goddess, in full cow form, famously suckles and nourishes King Thutmose III of the 18th Dynasty.
75. Amulet in the shape of a dwarf
Third Intermediate Period(?), perhaps 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Glass
ECM 2076
125. Amulet of Pataikos
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 676
The short stature and bowed legs of the dwarf were, for the Egyptians, emblematic of divine presence at birth, and amulets of dwarf form—representations of the lion faced Bes, or of the human-faced Pataikos, an all-purpose domestic form of the Memphite earth god Ptah—were particularly popular during and after the New Kingdom. For the first of these pieces, the use of glass of a pale blue hue (originally surmounted by a headdress, we may guess, in precious metal) might initially suggest a New Kingdom attribution, but the Pataikos-type representation is rare before the Third Intermediate Period, and the brief inscription incised on the base—a terse ‘Dwarf amulet’—is similarly suggestive of this later dating.
165. Amulet of the goddess Mut
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1360 BC
Glass
ECM 1664
77. Figure of the goddess Mut
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1689
78. Model decree case of the goddess Mut
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Glassy material
ECM 1665
The goddess Mut—the name in Egyptian means ‘mother’—is identified by the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt which she traditionally wears. Mut was one of pharaoh’s guardians. She was also the mythological consort of Amun-Re, the lord of Karnak temple and preeminent god of the country from the New Kingdom on. Mut enjoyed great popularity, and was the subject of many images and amulets—a selection of the latter seen here. The two figural representations—one amuletic, the other votive, the first in a deep blue glassy material imitating lapis lazuli, the latter in an equally sumptuous blue glaze—are each of the highest quality. The third piece is more unusual, replicating, in the same deep blue, glassy material, a case for a ‘decree’ or oracle uttered by the goddess and worn as a powerful amulet.
144. Amulet of Nefertem
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1536
163. Amulet of Nefertem
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1662
In Egyptian mythology, Nefertem—the blue lotus out of which rises the sun—was offspring of the lioness goddess Sakhmet, engendered (by implication) by her consort, Ptah of Memphis. The god of perfume and sweet-smelling scents, in variant theologies he is the child not of Sakhmet but of other leonine goddesses—Bastet or Wadjet. These, like so many of Major Myers’ amulets, are typical of the perfection of colour and quality to which he aspired in his collecting—a perfection difficult to achieve even in the glory days of collecting at the end of the nineteenth century.
81. Sistrum
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty or later, after 946 BC
Faience
ECM 1693
The sistrum was a ritualistic rattle, called in Egyptian seshseshet—an onomatopoeic word evoking not only the noise made by the instrument itself but also the rustling of the cow-goddess Hathor as she pushed her way through the reed beds of the Delta marshes. Quite exceptionally, the votive example of the form shown here is virtually intact. Moulded in blue-green faience (an early example in this material), it lacks only the metal crossbars and loose metal jangles. The inscriptions on either side of the handle are invocations of Bastet—the preeminent Egyptian goddess at this time.
83. Amulet in the form of a cat
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Glazed steatite, with electrum collar and armlets
ECM 1725
This highly detailed and perfectly preserved cat of blue-glazed steatite—a fine-grained soapstone frequently employed for the carving of small amulets, scarabs and scaraboids—was further embellished in antiquity by the addition of an electrum collar and bracelets (one bracelet removed during conservation). Almost certainly the image was intended to represent a temple cat sacred to the goddess Bastet, the creature goddess of Bubastis which was home to the ruling 22nd Dynasty. Amulets such as this could be worn not only to bestow the powerful protection of the goddess in life, but also in death.
146. Bes amulet
Late Period, 26th Dynasty or earlier, before 525 BC
Faience
ECM 1540
The domestic protector-god Bes—dwarf-like, lion faced and lion tailed and wearing a multi-plumed crown—was a popular subject for amulets during the late second and first millennia BC, and examples may be found today in their thousands. The god owed this popularity to his perceived efficacy—by virtue of his ugliness—as a warder-off of evil during childbirth.
76. Amulet of Isis and Horus
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1532
Isis was the mythic sister and wife of Osiris—murdered by his anarchic brother, Seth, and revived by his widow to beget a child, Horus, who would in time challenge Seth for his father’s inheritance. Images of the divine mother and Horus child represented for the Egyptians a powerful literary and artistic motif. This particular image can be dated to the Third Intermediate Period by the brilliant colour of the glaze and the openwork technique. The loop on the back shows that the piece was intended either as an amulet or as a small ex voto image to be suspended in a temple or shrine.
94. Figure of Sakhmet
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1716
187. Sakhmet
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1884
122. Figure of Sakhmet
Late Period, 30th Dynasty, 380-342 BC
Wax
ECM 638
164. Amulet of Bastet
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1663
The fine modeling and pale green glaze suggest that these large faience cat-headed figures date from the 22nd Dynasty, ex voto images (judging by the scale) offered at a shrine of the goddess by some pious pilgrim. The fourth figure, modeled in beeswax, is thought to be a prototype for casting in bronze by the cire perdue, or lost wax, process. The cult center of Sakhmet—‘The powerful one’, daughter of the sun-god Re—was at Memphis. She was revered both as an avenger and, conversely, as a healer, called upon to strengthen the king’s resolve in battle and ward off plague. The cult center of Bastet was Bubastis—‘The Place of Bastet’—in the Delta, home of the kings of the 22nd Dynasty.
123. Figure of a falcon
Late Period, 30th Dynasty, 380-342 BC
Wax
ECM 639
121. Figure of a ram
Late Period, 30th Dynasty, 380-342 BC
Wax
ECM 637
The ‘lost wax’ (cire perdue) method of metal casting involved, first, the modeling by hand in wax of the image to be reproduced, followed by the coating of this wax model with clay to form a seamless mould. As the molten metal was introduced into this clay mould, the wax would melt and be replaced. Because of the nature of the casting process, original wax sculptures such as those displayed here—doubtless from the same workshop—are today exceedingly rare. They represent images of the falcon god Horus and (probably) the creator-god Khnum.
79. Horus-falcon pendant
Probably Late Period, 30th Dynasty, 380-342 BC
Glassy material
ECM 1530
This magnificent, double-sided ornament takes the form of a divine falcon wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt—that is, a representation of Horus, god of kingship and defender of the cosmic order. Large-scale silhouette pectorals similar to this appear in sculptural representations from the 26th Dynasty on, and not merely as decoration. As a Late Period papyrus in Brooklyn reveals, a falcon image similar to this was employed in the ritual for confirming royal power which was enacted by the king himself, or by a priest taking his part, at the start of each New Year.
169. Ibis amulet
Late Period, 30th Dynasty(?), circa 380-342 BC
Alabaster and bronze
ECM 1691
170. Ibis amulet
Late Period, 30th Dynasty(?), circa 380-342 BC
Alabaster and bronze
ECM 1692
This pair of composite ibis amulets or ex votos have bodies of Egyptian alabaster to which heads and feet of gilded bronze have been attached, as well, originally, as a tail of some similarly contrasting material which on both specimens is now lost. The ibis was, from the earliest times, seen as sacred to Thoth, god of the moon and patron deity of scribes and the world of knowledge.
128. Nephthys amulet
Ptolemaic Period, 323-30 BC
Faience
ECM 776
Nephthys was one of the principal funerary goddesses, the nominal partner of Seth, god of confusion, and along with her sister, Isis, one of the principal mourners at the death of Osiris, lord of the Underworld. Her headdress, as here, is formed by the hieroglyphs which make up her name: nebet hut, ‘Lady of the Mansion’.
CASE 16
142. Cosmetic jar and lid
Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, 1976-1794/3 BC
Faience
ECM 1476, 1477
The gently flaring outline of this small faience jar identifies it as the container referred to by the Egyptians as a bas-vessel—a type going back to Predynastic times and frequently encountered in a range of hard and precious stones, including obsidian. Because of its shared sound value, the hieroglyph of the vessel form is used in writing the name of the cat-goddess Bastet. This small faience version, with its accompanying disc lid decorated in black, will have served as an ointment jar for ritual or personal use either in this world or the beyond.
31. Bowl with lotus decoration
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1761
178. Lotus bowl
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1760
The shallow blue bowl—decorated in black with a range of motifs associated with the goddess Hathor and the life-giving qualities of cool, fresh water—is among the most familiar products of the 18th Dynasty faience workshops. Lotus flowers and papyrus marshes, tilapia fish and the Hathor cow—all offered a sensuous artistic vocabulary from which different elements were variously combined.
29. Bowl with three fish sharing a single head
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1880
114. Bowl with three fish sharing a single head
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 432
The unifying theme of these faience bowls is the blue lotus (Nymphaea caerulea), which echoes in its exaggerated opening and closing the rising and setting of the sun—the principal image of rebirth in nature. On several extant vessels, among the lotus flowers, may be seen the tilapia fish—a creature which, protecting its eggs within its mouth, came to symbolize autogenesis by virtue of adult and offspring being present within a single body.
152. Fish pendant
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1622
Fish pendants—modelled in gold, silver, a range of semi-precious stones, or faience, as the bulti-fish shown here—are frequently encountered in wall paintings and sculpture, shown either dangling from the cowrie-shell belts of naked dancing girls or tied as a decoration in the hair. In life, their function may have been as a protection against drowning. As an amulet for the tomb, the bulti’s popularity was based upon the creature’s role as a celestial guide, helping to draw the barque of the sun god Re across the sky each day.
49. Chalice in the form of a blue lotus
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1578
51. Chalice in the form of a blue lotus
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1721
130. Chalice in the form of a blue lotus
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 811
148. Chalice in the form of a blue lotus
New Kingdom-Third Intermediate Period, before 736 BC
Faience
ECM 1580
Stemmed, chalice-like cups, with bowls in the shape of a lotus flower, first appeared in the 18th Dynasty in a variety of materials, including metal, stone, faience, and glass. Two basic types of Egyptian lotus chalice may be distinguished: those modeled in the form of the narrower blue lotus (Nymphaea caerulea), and vessels which imitate the broader white lotus (Nymphaea lotus). The blue lotus—which was not necessarily employed as a drinking vessel—was primarily cultic or votive in character, dedicated in temples and as offerings to the dead and occurring in both plain and elaborate forms.
CASE 17
27. Bowl with emblems of Hathor and a central pool
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1590
177. Bowl with blossoms and lozenges
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1759
26. Bowl with lotuses around a central pool
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1479
28. Bowl with fish around a central pool
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1646
Evidently produced by moulding over a hemispherical form (perhaps a sand-filled textile bag, as attested at Kerma), faience lotus bowls had their heyday under Thutmose III, as many as seven having been recovered from a single private tomb, but continued to be produced in a more developed form well into the Ramessid era. The bowls’ precise function remains uncertain. Residue in some examples appeared to the excavators to be the remains of milk, but water seems a more likely liquid content—perhaps to float actual lotus flowers.
207. Funerary vessel fragment
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Thutmose IV, 1397-1388 BC
From Thebes (Valley of the Kings, tomb of Thutmose IV, KV43)
Faience
ECM 33
Royal burials included even larger quantities of funerary equipment than rich private tombs, and Howard Carter’s discovery of the tomb of Thutmose IV on 18 January 1903 would produce, as part of its bounty, a mass of complete and fragmentary ritual vessels of moulded faience. This large fragment is reputed to be one of them. Produced in two mould-made sections luted together before firing and the formation of its brilliant, intense blue glaze, the vessel’s external decoration, in black, takes the form a frieze of open and closed papyrus stems topped by a frieze of running spirals.
30. Bowl with a seated woman
New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, 1292-1186/5 BC
Faience
ECM 821
In the latest manifestation of the faience lotus bowl, produced during the 19th Dynasty, the lotus, fish and Hathor imagery gives way to a more pictorial form of decoration. A naked dancing girl, shown kneeling, playing a lute and accompanied by a pet monkey, is one popular theme. Here, the imagery is more sober, and appears to refer directly to the owner—a noble lady, shown seated on a formal chair before an offering table. The subject matter and design elements—in particular the preponderance of convolvulus, a common Ramessid symbol of resurrection—seem to indicate clear funerary intent.
33. Vessel in the form of a fish
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1785
By virtue of its regenerative associations, the tilapia fish became a popular artistic subject-matter, and it is encountered in a range of contexts and reproduced in a variety of materials—including glass, pottery, and faience, as here. Intended, we may guess, as a container for precious oils poured out through the mouth, holes for the vessel’s vertical suspension are located in front of the faded black dorsal fin and beneath the gills.
50. Chalice in the form of a blue lotus
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1676
55. Chalice in the form of a white lotus
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1579
The two chalices displayed here clearly illustrate the difference between the blue and white versions of the type—the former with its tightly waisted profile and flaring rim, the latter with broader in section with an incurved rim. The decoration on both examples is similarly naturalistic, executed in manganese black. Whereas the blue-lotus chalice appears to have been primarily cultic in character, employed in temples and elsewhere or among ritual offerings to the dead, the less common white-lotus chalice was essentially a drinking cup, associated in particular with the offering of milk and wine to the cow-goddess Hathor.
CASE 18
167. Wedjat-eye
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1682
The wedjat-eye was a popular funerary amulet, commonly encountered today wrapped in with the bandages of the mummified corpse. More often than not, in small, basic specimens where internal detail is wholly lacking, the type may be identified by shape alone—which consistently follows the outline of the falcon’s eye marking with its distinctive ‘tear drop’ and curl. The type was placed in various positions on the body, but particularly around the area of the chest, either on its own or in single or multiple strands.
172-175. Duamutef, Hapy, Imsety and Qebehsenuef amulets
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1697-1700
Following the end of the New Kingdom, it was not uncommon for the internal organs of the deceased to be embalmed and replaced within the body cavity rather than stored separately in a set of canopic jars. In such cases, the jars’ protective genii—Duamutef (stomach), Hapy (lungs), Imsety (liver), and Qebehsenuef (intestines)—were associated as amulets with the mummy itself, often as part of a beadwork shroud placed over the corpse. The quality of this particular set (as that of several other sets in the Myers collection) is far above average for the type.
131. Pectoral
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 814
80. Pectoral with the deceased before Banebdjedet and Hatmehyt
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty or later, after 946 BC
Probably from Mendes
Faience
ECM 1686
Shrine-shaped pectoral ornaments such as this were characteristic products of the jeweler and faience worker from the Middle Kingdom on. Both of the specimens shown here are funerary, removed from the wrappings of mummies. On the first, executed in a fine bichrome blue glaze, the god Osiris is shown seated within a cabin on a papyrus skiff, the divinities Onuris before and Sakhmet behind. In the second, we see the rare god Banebdjedet (literally, ‘The Ram, Lord of Mendes’), with the fish goddess Hatmehyt standing behind. The pair are worshipped by a woman identified only by a panel of garbled hieroglyphs but clearly intended as the pectoral’s deceased owner. The design is contained within a schematized shrine with solar-disc cornice.
89. Winged scarab
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
Faience
ECM 233
During the later phases of Egyptian dynastic history, the neat outer wrappings of mummies were often embellished with amuletic figures of faience. This, clearly, was the original context of the present winged, solar scarab beetle, the exceptional modeling and colour of which establish that it dates from the 8th-7th century BC, when Egypt’s faience workshops excelled in such meticulous work. The perfection to which the artist aspired is seen in the body of the scarab—though in the case of the wings only a single feather has been completely detailed.
199. Plaque of Imsety
Late Period, 26th Dynasty or later, after 664 BC
Silver
ECM 2191
During the first millennium BC, the ‘four sons of Horus’—the genii charged with the protection of the mummy’s internal organs—were commonly represented in figural, amuletic form. Occasionally, in richer, later burials, more precious materials are encountered, with the god shown in two-dimensional form—as here with this single plaque in silver (one of an original four), the outer face of which is chased with a standing image of Imsety, guardian of the liver.
141. Djed-pillar amulet
Late Period, 22nd Dynasty or earlier, before 736 BC
Faience
ECM 1449
There has much speculation by modern scholars on the origins of the djed-pillar, but by the New Kingdom it is clear that it had come to be identified in the Egyptian mind as the backbone of the god Osiris. Not inappropriately, its connotations were held to be those of stability and endurance—qualities the amulet was intended magically to confer on the deceased, among whose wrappings it was so frequently placed.
CASE 19
212. Cylindrical vessel with basket decoration
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty or earlier, before 1292 BC
Faience
ECM 418
189. Lidded basket
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Rushwork
ECM1889
47. Lidded basket
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty or later, after 1550 BC
Probably from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 494
48. Lidded basket
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty or later, after 1550 BC
Probably from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 845
Basketry is an extremely ancient manufacturing tradition in Egypt, and was a form the Egyptians delighted in reproducing in a variety of media from the Predynastic Period on. Some copies, like the first of the vessels shown here, are more abstracted; others, including Eton’s lidded vessels—distinctive and extraordinary products of the faience workers of Tuna el-Gebel in Middle Egypt—are surprisingly accurate renderings. Hand-modelled over a form, with surface details added before firing, they were evidently designed to contain cosmetics, probably for funerary use. That the content was of some value seems to be indicated by the elaborate method of closure which has been inferred from the string holes in the lid and around the rim of the faience ‘baskets’ proper.
32. Dish with a calf
New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, 1292-1186/5 BC
Faience
ECM 1758
This flat-bottomed dish echoes in both material and design the rounded lotus bowls, though its principal motif is that of a young, dappled bull rather than a cow. As with those earlier bowls, the unequivocal message of the composition is new life—represented by the green papyrus marsh in which the fertile bullock stands, and the offerings of water (and actual lotus stems) the vessel will perhaps once have contained.
115. Ribbed vessel
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty or earlier, before 736 BC
Faience
ECM 442
241. Ribbed vessel
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty or earlier, before 736 BC
Faience
ECM 1735
An elaborated version of these two faience fructiform vessels—in silver with a gold ibex handle, apparently dating from the 19th Dynasty—was dug up at Tell Basta (ancient Bubastis) in 1906. In Egyptian colour convention, blue is commonly employed to represent silver, and it is possible that Major Myers’ vessels were intended as imitations not only of this type but of this more precious material also. Though conceivably of this early, New Kingdom date, a later, Third Intermediate Period attribution is perhaps more likely from the glaze.
CASE 20
69. Flask with feathered decoration
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Perhaps from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1673
116. Flask
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Perhaps from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 459
166. Flask
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Perhaps from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1674
The Myers collection includes several narrow, tear-drop shaped flasks in faience, which differ only in their relative sizes and quality—i.e. the greater or lesser extent to which their surfaces are decorated, with or without incised rishi (feather) decoration at the rim. Each of the vessels appears to have been produced by moulding in two longitudinal halves which were joined before firing and glazing. The function is quite uncertain, but if ever intended for practical use (rather than as votive simulacra) they may have contained precious cosmetics or oils.
56. Chalice in the form of a white lotus
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Probably from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1581
An early example of the white-lotus chalice is displayed elsewhere in this exhibition. Here we see the type in its fully developed, most sophisticated form—hemispherical, multi-lobed, relatively thin walled; exquisitely modelled, and very close to the flower in nature. A representation of Tutankhamun drinking from a vessel of this type may be seen on a collar terminal at Eton, again from Major Myers’ collection.
CASE 21
209. Fragment of a storage vessel
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1340 BC
Blue-painted pottery
ECM 352
210. Fragment of a storage vessel
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1340 BC
Blue-painted pottery
ECM 353
211. Fragment of a storage vessel
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1340 BC
Blue-painted pottery
ECM 354
Blue-painted vessels, produced in a range of forms, represent the New Kingdom potter’s most luxurious achievement. The ware first appears in quantity during the reigns of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, occurring sporadically thereafter and gradually petering out at the end of the 20th Dynasty. Decorated with floral and animal motifs, the applied blue pigment transformed the most mundane of storage vessels—such as those represented by the displayed sherds—into gaudy but brilliant masterpieces of movement and colour. Few fragments of vessels of this exceptional scale, so vibrantly decorated, are known.
252. Nemset-vessel
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1340 BC or later
Blue-painted pottery
ECM 354
A close parallel to this ritualistic vessel—referred to in the ancient texts as a nemset—, also of blue-painted pottery, was recovered by Howard Carter from the tomb of Tutankhamun. A similar date, at the end of the 18th Dynasty, may be ventured for the Eton piece. The Tutankhamun specimen was complete with its elaborate lid, which takes the form of a falcon’s head sporting the divine solar disc. The presence of that nemset among the rubbish of the tomb’s corridor suggests its use in the funerary obsequies of the young king.
179. Brand
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1340 BC
Bronze
ECM 1770
180. Brand with name of the Aten
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1340 BC
Bronze
ECM 1771
Branding—primarily of cattle, but also of slaves—was commonplace in Egypt, but only a very small number of branding ‘irons’ are known. Representations of the practice in an agricultural context are found in several Theban private tombs—including those of Qenamun, Neferhotep, Huy, Nebamun and Userhet. They show how, like today, the brand was heated in a grate prior to its application, in order to burn an impression of the brand motif into the animal’s hide and identify ownership or otherwise designate the creature’s intended role. The first of the brands displayed here reads ‘Royal cattle’, the second ‘[Property of] the Aten’.
CASE 22
19. Coffin lid of the master builder Amenhotep
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep II, 1428-1397 BC
From Thebes (Dra Abu’l-Naga, tomb TT A7)
Painted, gilded and inlaid wood
ECM 1876
The Theban tomb of the master-builder Amenhotep and his wife, Mutresti, is that now numbered A7 at Dra Abu’l-Naga. The tomb was brought to light, essentially intact, by Theban locals in about 1890, and its contents dispersed. A range of items from the burial have been identified on the basis of their texts, including the trough of this same coffin (which is in Uppsala), fragments of the owner’s funerary papyrus (in London, Stockholm, Boston, Newport, Amsterdam, and New York), and four canopic jars and a shabti figure (in Chicago). Amenhotep’s name and title—‘Overseer of the Builders of Amun’—are here inscribed in a vertical column of neatly drawn yellow hieroglyphs on the lid’s inner surface, alongside an exquisite image of the goddess Nut, who metaphorically embraces the body of the deceased.
CASE 23
151. Lotiform kohl pot with lid
Faience
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
ECM 1619
The use of cosmetics to enhance and protect the eyes had been a feature of Egyptian civilization since prehistoric times. During the Dynastic Period, the black ‘kohl’ eye make-up was based on galena (lead ore), while the older green variant (which had fallen out of favour by the New Kingdom) was based on ground malachite. Special containers were produced to hold these cosmetics, in a range of forms—during the Middle and New Kingdoms, squat, lidded vessels such as that shown here being the most popular, produced in a range of natural and artificial materials.
34. Cosmetic dish in the shape of an oryx
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 799
Elaborate cosmetic objects are an especially characteristic feature of the 18th Dynasty—virtuoso displays of applied art with an underlying theme of devotion to Hathor, goddess of love and beauty. Intended, by this iconography, as emblems of procreation and rebirth, they tend to occur in funerary contexts rather than in the ruined houses of their rich owners. The bound oryx—emblematic of the vanquished god of disorder, Seth—represents a common motif in ‘spoons’ of the genre, which seem to have been intended as containers for salve. The symbolism here, as frequently, is the control of disorder by order—often bolstered, in more elaborate versions of the type, through the presence of a specific Hathor-related iconography.
35. Cosmetic dish with a lute player
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, circa 1340 BC
Steatite
ECM 1793
In this steatite cosmetic dish we see a female lute player wearing a short Nubian wig and broad collar, kneeling in a duck-prowed papyrus skiff upon a papyrus-filled lake—which is itself detached from the main composition to form the container for salve. The joyous imagery of the scene is confirmed by the rectangle beneath the skiff, the decoration of which simultaneously conveys the meanings ‘water’ and ‘festival’. Quite possibly the imagery is more specific than this, alluding to a particular story or song familiar at the time but now wholly forgotten.
36. Mirror with a maiden handle
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Bronze
ECM 1788
The typical Egyptian mirror consists of a slightly flattened solar disc of once-bright metal, shaped with a tang to fit into an independently fashioned handle of similar or contrasting material. Capturing, as it did, the image of the living face, for the ancients the mirror was imbued with the very essence of its owner and so became closely associated in the Egyptian mind with the concept of revivification. The association was often strengthened by incorporating a papyrus umbel into the handle design—an umbel which here forms an arc, the ends of which are grasped by an all-but-naked dancing girl whose body forms the grip. The subject matter strengthens the vital imagery of the object—already hinted at by the common outline it shares with the hieroglyph for ‘life’ (ankh).
39. Kohl tube with the names of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep III, 1388-1351/50 BC
Faience
ECM 1640
Besides the small, lidded kohl pot, another common type of container for eye-paint was the simple hollowed reed—a type which, under Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, was frequently reproduced in coloured faience as a royal festal gift. The fronts of such tubes are often inscribed with glaze- or pigment-filled hieroglyphs which contain not only the name of the gifting king but also that of one or other of his queens—to emphasize what, for the Egyptians, were complementary themes of cosmetics and sensuality.
137. Face inlay
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Lapis lazuli
ECM 944
143. Face inlay
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Glass
ECM 1485
The two fine face inlays displayed here are worked in real lapis lazuli and in the ‘ersatz’ and improved version of the same—blue glass. The smaller piece without doubt, and the larger very probably, were prepared for use in items of rare, masterpiece jewellery similar to the two series of elaborate pectoral ornaments discovered by Howard Carter in the tomb of Tutankhamun in the early1920s and by Pierre Montet in the 21st-22nd Dynasty Tanis necropolis two decades later.
127. Monkey pin-head(?)
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 761
This plump monkey in deep blue faience, shown nibbling at a piece of fruit, is pierced at the base and seems originally to have formed the head of a hair pin of wood or contrasting ivory, now long since gone. Whether any deeper meaning is to be seen in the design—beyond the composition’s obvious charm—is uncertain.
181. Trinket box of semi-circular section
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Wood
ECM 1782
This small, decorated trinket (or cosmetic) box is of a well-known type dating from the reign of Amenhotep III or Akhenaten. Manufactured from a tree-branch split lengthwise to provide a flattened upper surface into which compartments were cut, its base follows the natural contour of the wood. A flattened lid—with decoration carved to match the base and similarly highlighted with pigment—slides in a groove, to be secured in antiquity by a cord wrapped around the two adjacent fastening knobs and sealed in mud with the owner’s personal scarab or signet.
70. Mirror handle
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Perhaps from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1675
The oval metal disc of this mirror does not survive. To judge from the quality of the handle, however, which is modeled in brilliant blue-green faience to imitate a papyrus bloom, the complete object will have been spectacular. The quality and colour are reminiscent of faience identified as coming from Tuna el-Gebel, although no definite evidence can be mustered to confirm that attribution.
CASE 24
21. Thistle beaker
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Egyptian alabaster
ECM 470
22. Thistle beaker
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Faience
ECM 1722
23. Thistle beaker
New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1292 BC
Blue glassy material
ECM 1645
These three vessels represent variations—in a range of different materials—on a single form: the footed ‘thistle’ beaker. The blue glassy ‘Egyptian blue’ specimen is particularly remarkable. Examples of the type have been found in a variety of contexts, though none of which would allow a definitive interpretation of their function. The pronounced rims on the alabaster and glassy specimens—awkward for drinking—suggest the somewhat likelier proposition that they functioned as jars for waxy ointment or salve.
CASE 25
66. Counterpoise with the head of a goddess
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Perhaps from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1668
67. Counterpoise with the head of a goddess
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Perhaps from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1670
68. Openwork counterpoise
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Perhaps from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1669
107. Counterpoise
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Perhaps from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 261
108. Counterpoise
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Perhaps from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 263
109. Counterpoise
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Perhaps from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 264
110. Counterpoise
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Perhaps from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 269
132. Counterpoise
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Perhaps from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 826
The counterpoise worn behind the neck to balance the weight of the traditional Egyptian broad collar was an object of veneration in its own right, closely associated with both the worship of the goddess Hathor and the funerary cult. The vast majority extant today were votive in character, with substantial quantities of fragments having been recovered from temples to the goddess at sites such as Deir el-Bahri, Serabit el-Khadim and Timna. As time went on, the close association with Hathor evidently broadened considerably to take in other deities. Two of those shown here introduce the iconography of the goddess Bastet, who was accorded national prominence in the Third Intermediate Period when these objects were produced.
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CASE 26
52. Relief-decorated chalice fragment with the name of Sheshonq I
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-925/4 BC
Probably from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1608
53. Chalice with narrative decoration in relief
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
From Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1582
54. Chalice with narrative decoration in relief
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
From Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1583
101. Chalice fragment
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Probably from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 78
102. Chalice fragment
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Probably from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 81
103. Chalice fragment
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Probably from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 83
138. Chalice fragment
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Probably from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 993
104. Flask( ?) fragment
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 84
While the outer surfaces of the earliest blue-lotus chalice bowls are decorated in a naturalistic manner, the latest examples—dating from the Third Intermediate Period—, while they continue the more delicate, developed shape, carry scenes in detailed raised relief illustrating various themes of kingly power and rebirth. An important fragment at Eton, which is inscribed with the cartouche of Sheshonq I of the 22nd Dynasty, confirms more precisely the date of this particular decorative style—which occurs not only on the chalice vessels but extends to the decoration of flasks also.
CASE 27
91. Figure of Thoth
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
From Sheikh el-Farag (Naga el-Deir)
Faience
ECM 1587
149. Thoth
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
Faience
ECM 1586
The first of these images of the ibis-headed Thoth is one of the finest examples of Late Period faience in existence, its original perfection marred only by minor breaks and the loss of the god’s curved beak (now restored). A number of identical images are known, distinguished by the twin suspension loops at either side of the wig, the god’s unusual nakedness, and the slipper-like, fennec-headed terminals of his feet (apparently a reference to Wepwawet, ‘opener of the ways’). Like its fragmentary, more modestly sculpted companion, based on size and fragility it seems more likely to have been a temple votive than a personal talisman.
176. Statuette of Isis suckling Horus
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
Faience
ECM 1717
129. Amulet of Isis suckling Horus
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
Faience
ECM 790
Isis was the mythic sister-wife of Osiris, who was murdered by his anarchic brother Seth and revived by his widow to beget a child, Horus, who would in time challenge Seth for his father’s inheritance. As the mother of Horus, Isis was also the mother of pharaoh and guarantor of the royal succession. Always a goddess of importance in Egypt, from the first millennium BC on her cult was especially popular, spreading in Roman times throughout the empire. The goddess par excellence, Isis lactans is seen by some as a natural prototype for the Christian image of the Madonna and Child. The physical similarities between the two images shown here—which date from the 7th-6th centuries BC— are remarkable, despite their differences in scale.
92. Isis-Nephthys-Horus triad
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
Faience
ECM 1558
Under the 26th Dynasty, the amulets placed within the wrappings of the well-to-do during the course of mummification became very much standardized, moulded most frequently in faience and turned out in quantity. This triad is of a type commonly encountered, though the quality for a piece on this tiny scale is remarkable. It depicts the god Horus flanked on his right by his mother Isis and on his left by her sister Nephthys—the two goddesses who protected the boy-god until he was old enough to claim the throne of Egypt. Through this amulet, the protection afforded Horus would be transferred magically to the deceased at the critical time of transition to new life.
93. Baboon of Thoth
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
Faience
ECM 1718
This image of the sacred baboon of Thoth squats on its haunches to proffer a wedjat-eye—the left, in deference to the god’s lunar associations. According to one version of Egyptian myth, the eye was that of the sun god Re, sent out to destroy his enemies, and it was Thoth who was responsible for coaxing its return. This achievement was celebrated in temples throughout Egypt to mark the restoration of order and stability—which, in practical terms, became manifest in the annual rising of the Nile following the months of summer drought.
188. Taweret
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
Faience
ECM 1885
Alongside Bes, the composite hippopotamus-lioness-crocodile goddess Taweret—‘The Great one’—was one of the principal tutelary deities of the Egyptian home. Doubtless because of her pregnant form, she was particularly venerated as a protectress in childbirth. Amulets of Taweret are frequently encountered, but examples as large and well-modelled as this are uncommon.
171. Apis bull amulet
Ptolemaic Period, 323-30 BC
Faience and gold
ECM 1696
This small, bichrome faience amulet (one of two similar specimens collected by Myers) takes the form of a miniature pectoral ornament depicting the Apis bull standing within a shrine, the whole contained within an (ancient?) gold mount which the second Myers amulet lacks. The Apis bull was the earthly manifestation of the god Ptah of Memphis, which through the divine oracle acted as his intermediary on earth.
200. Pair of ram horns from a statue
Ptolemaic Period(?), probably 323-30 BC
Bronze
ECM 2198
The ram was the sacred animal of several Egyptian gods, including Amun and Khnum, and this pair of large and heavy bronze horns will have embellished a large-scale stone temple sculpture. Each has an undulating, cast-in decoration reproducing the growth rings of the original horn, of a type which is sometimes encountered decorated with precious metal inlays.
CASE 28
61. Face inlay
New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, reign of Sethos I, 1290-1279/8 BC
Red jasper
ECM 1655
This exquisite face, carved in red jasper, preserves the distinctive profile of Pharaoh Sethos I, which is not only familiar from numerous two-dimensional representations at Abydos but can be compared with the well-preserved profile of the king’s mummy from the Deir el-Bahri cache. Since the features of the reigning king were as a matter of course applied to images of the gods, however, this face may come from a depiction of a deity rather than of the ruler himself. The subtly modelled surface of the inlay has been polished to an almost mirror-like sheen, with eye and eyebrow once inlaid in separate, contrasting materials.
84. Head of a woman
Late Period, 25th Dynasty, circa 746-655 BC
Faience
ECM 1707
The short curly hair (or wig) depicted on this tiny head broken from a small figure is a feature of archaizing sculpture of the Late Period. Since ear ornaments seem to have fallen out of use with the demise of the 25th Dynasty, not recurring until the time of the Ptolemies in the late 4th century BC, the piercing of the ears on this piece would suggest an earlier rather than later date for it—a conclusion compatible with the quality of the glaze. Despite the absence of royal attributes, the head may come from the figure of a ‘divine adoratrice’—effectively the high priestess of the god Amun in Theban (Karnak) ritual, married off to the deity to fulfil his every earthly need.
85. Shawabti of King Psamtik I(?)
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, reign of Psamtik I(?), probably 664-610 BC
From Sais
Faience
ECM 1709
The royal shawabti figures of the 26th Dynasty are notoriously difficult to assign, and it is far from certain which of the three Psamtik kings is represented in this superb figure. The consensus, based primarily on the basis of quality, is that it represents the first of these, Psamtik I, founder of the 26th Dynasty ‘renaissance’ in Egypt’s artistic and political fortunes. Several specimens of these shawabtis are extant, but what distinguishes the Myers example is its partially blackened surface—a condition which recalls Herodotus’s tale that at least one of the Saite royal tombs was put to the torch by the invading army of the Persian King Cambyses. Though such stories are usually dismissed as anti-Persian propaganda, the Eton figure may suggest otherwise.
88. Counterpoise of Amosis II
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, reign of Amosis II (Amasis), 570-526 BC
Faience
ECM 1710
Unlike the elaborate specimens of the Third Intermediate Period, the broad-collar counterpoises of the 26th Dynasty were relatively simple in form, with texts focusing attention squarely on the king himself. This mould-made faience example carries the names of King Amosis II within a frame surmounted by the hieroglyph for ‘heaven’. A similar specimen in the Louvre, inscribed for his predecessor Apries, carries the additional wish for ‘very many sed-festivals’—suggesting that, like the New Year flasks, the counterpoises were intended as offerings to secure a bountiful inundation.
229. Divine falcon with counterpoise
Ptolemaic Period, 323-30 BC
Gessoed and painted wood
ECM 1490
This mummiform falcon is of a type usually found mounted on the vaulted lids of shrine-shaped funerary boxes of the Ptolemaic Period, and represents the funerary deity Sokar, lord of Rostau (the entrance to the Underworld), preeminent god of the Memphite necropolis who was closely associated with the creator-god Ptah. The piece is carved in wood with applied gesso surface and painted decoration, including a representation of the traditional broad-collar counterpoise in use.
95. Mythical animal
Persian Period, 27th Dynasty, 525-401 BC
Faience
ECM 1705
From 525-404 BC, Egypt was a province of the Persian Empire and, although later anathematized by the Egyptians themselves, it was a period of great prosperity and cultural sophistication—which in art witnessed the introduction of striking new forms executed in Egypt’s age-old materials. The creativity of the period powerfully manifests itself in this Asiatic griffin, exquisitely modelled in a fine green-glazed faience with secondary details highlighted in pale blue. The leaping form of the fragment would be well suited as the handle of a vessel, for which parallels in contemporaneous metalwork may be cited.
96. Head of a man
Probably late Ptolemaic Period, before 30 BC
Faience
ECM 1688
The material of this miniature, pale blue-green head is an unusually compact glaze composition akin to so-called ‘glassy faience’. Modelled in a plastic state before firing, it displays none of the ‘idealizing’ tendencies common at this time but appears rather to be a unique portrait—extraordinary on this small scale—recalling the finest works of the coroplasts responsible for the extraordinary genre heads found in some quantity at Ptolemaic settlement sites such as Memphis.
CASE 29
99. Portrait head of a woman
Roman Period, circa AD 130
Painted and gilded plaster on wood
ECM 1571
192. Portrait head of a girl
Roman Period
Painted plaster
ECM 2157
193. Portrait head of a woman
Roman Period
Painted plaster
ECM 2158
234. Portrait head of a woman
Roman Period
Painted plaster
ECM 1509
William Joseph Myers was in Egypt at the crucial time the country’s Roman cemeteries were first being systematically exploited, and he was thus able to assemble a particularly fine collection of classical plaster masks of the sort which were formerly attached (in a characteristic mingling of eastern and western traditions) to Egyptian-style mummies of the period. Such heads may be dated, on the basis of hairstyle and jewellery, to the first and second centuries of Roman rule, as well as by comparison with other sculptures of the period which follow the imperial portraiture. A particularly lifelike quality is given to several of the heads by the use of inlayed eyes—a quality which, when the heads were originally lashed in position on the corpse of the deceased, will have been strengthened by the dynamism of their posture: heads raised as if the mummified dead were about to rise.
CASE 30
215. Amphora
Roman Period, 2nd century AD, or before
Faience
ECM 570
231. Amphora
Roman Period, 1st century AD, or before
Faience
ECM 1492
136. Relief-decorated jar
Roman Period, 1st century AD
Faience
ECM 855
221. Relief-decorated jar fragment
Roman Period, 1st century AD
Faience
ECM 854
227. Relief-decorated cylinder-vessel
Roman Period, 1st century AD
Faience
ECM 1407
257. Pyriform vessel fragment
Roman Period, 1st century AD
Faience
ECM 2182
Thick-walled faience vessels, with decoration either modeled in relief or applied, with a fine or coarse, sugary glaze, are characteristic products of the 1st century AD Egyptian faience workshops. While a clear continuity may be discerned in the earliest specimens, decorated in shallow relief, from the finer decorated bichrome wares of the Ptolemaic Period, elsewhere the employment of higher relief and bosses would indicate that occasionally the various types are based upon metal (repoussé) prototypes. Displaying a thorough mix of native and foreign styles and motifs, the actual use to which such vessels were put is uncertain—though the two-handled types, at least, may have been intended as funerary urns rather than as objects of daily use. While fragments are not uncommon, relatively few complete examples of this class of vessel have survived.
CASE 31
97. Image of Bes
Roman Period, circa AD 50
Faience and wood
ECM 1508
In the absence of parallels from documented excavations, the original function of archaeological materials is not always apparent. This substantial image of the household god Bes is a case in point. Its modeling and the rough, sugary surface of the glaze clearly identify it as a product of Roman times. Parallels for the image are not unknown, but quite unique is the figure’s wooden matrix—a feature which hints, perhaps, at an architectural setting for the piece. Most likely it served as a protective or iconic device set into the wall of a building where the god was invoked—whether a private domestic dwelling, a ‘birthing room’, or a dedicated chamber within a formal temple complex where the oracle of the god might be consulted.
195. Panel with Horus on horseback spearing Seth
Roman Period, 4th century AD
Faience
ECM 2166
The eternal struggle between good and evil epitomized in the contendings of Horus and Seth is given a characteristically Roman treatment in this large, fragmentary faience tile. The god Horus, shown seated on horseback in the guise of a Roman officer, spears an ibex representative of the god Seth, lord of chaos—in an iconography which bears remarkable similarities to that of George and the Dragon. The remains of a multi-line inscription may perhaps be discerned beneath the groundline of the scene.
CASE 36
135. Barbotine jar
Roman Period, 2nd century AD
Pottery
ECM 852
198. Barbotine jar
Roman Period, 2nd century AD
Pottery
ECM 2190
258. Barbotine jar
Roman Period, 2nd century AD
Pottery
ECM 2317
The name ‘barbotine’ derives from that of a French pastry-chef of Louis XIV whose products were famously decorated by the application of piped sugar icing. The 1st and 2nd century AD pottery vessels with surfaces decorated à la Barbotin with piped liquid clay of a contrasting colour have their origins in Roman Italy, but were eventually copied locally, for domestic use, in all the provinces of the Empire, including Egypt.
CASE 32
255. Portrait head of a boy
Roman Period, AD 40-60
Painted plaster
ECM 2155
256. Portrait head of a bearded man
Roman Period, AD 140-160
Painted plaster
ECM 2163
In the first of these fragmentary plaster portraits, the boy’s hair is arranged at the front in characteristic Julio-Claudian fashion, finding its closest parallels in the reign of Claudius and Nero. The subject, however, with its long line of kohl drawn along the upper lid in a quite un-Roman manner, is clearly Egyptian. The second head, a century or so later in date, depicts an older, hirsuite man, like that of the boy with painted rather than inlaid eyes.
CASE 33
191. Portrait of a man
Roman Period, AD 140-170
Encaustic on wood
ECM 2149
197. Portrait head of a man
Roman Period, AD 120-150
Painted plaster
ECM 2169
During Roman times there were two distinct ways of decorating the mummified dead: with three-dimesnional plaster heads of the deceased; and with two-dimensional panel-paintings—the so-called ‘Faiyum portraits’—which were originally bound in place over the linen-wrappings or cartonnage-coverings. The latter are the supreme achievement of Egyptian art under the Romans. Widely distributed throughout Egypt, they occur in both tempera and encaustic (hot wax) techniques—of which the encaustic paintings are by far the best. The encaustic panel-portrait shown here—of a bearded man dating from the last quarter of the 2nd century AD—may profitably be compared with a plaster portrait head treating a similar subject-matter of roughly the same date.
CASE 34
228. Openwork bead spacer
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Probably from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1484
71. Openwork bead spacer
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Probably from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1658
72. Openwork bead spacer
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Probably from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1659
Rectangular bead spacers with depictions of kings and gods are characteristic products of the 22nd Dynasty Tuna el-Gebel faience worker. The imagery is that of rebirth, an affirmation of triumph over disorder on the occasion of the annual inundation and the advent of a new year—for the celebration of which these and the relief-decorated chalices and openwork rings were produced. Such forms disappear in the late 8th century ‘renaissance’, replaced during the 26th Dynasty by rather different approaches to the greeting of the rising Nile flood. They would soon be lost altogether with the advent of the Greeks and the succumbing by Egyptian faience workshops to predominantly Hellenistic styles.
73. Finger ring with cat and kittens
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1483
74. Openwork finger ring
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Probably from Tuna el-Gebel
Faience
ECM 1482
162. Finger ring with Sakhmet aegis
Third Intermediate Period, 22nd Dynasty, 946/5-736 BC
Faience
ECM 1661
The history of ‘costume’—i.e. imitative—jewellery is a long one, dating back to the 18th Dynasty at least with the reproduction in faience (for distribution on festal occasions) of a range of precious metal prototypes. By the Third Intermediate Period, newer and more elaborate ring-types were being attempted—such as the specimens shown here. These represent veritable chefs d’ouevres of the faience worker’s craft, differing markedly from the relatively crude and heavy rings of the Late Period and beyond which were to follow.
CASE 35
86. Three-handled flask
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
Faience
ECM 1736
The material of this large but delicate three-handled globular flask is an extremely fine-grained faience with an almost metallic sheen. Indeed, the thinness of the vessel’s walls and the fine modeling and ribbing of the handles and neck strongly suggest a metal prototype for the form—although the only close parallels traced so far occur on a much smaller scale in New Kingdom glass. The precise function of the vessel is difficult to determine, but was presumably scented or precious oil. The date is more elusive still, but the 26th Dynasty seems the most likely option.
87. New Year’s flask
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
Faience
ECM 1704
In its form, this flask echoes the glass and faience vessels of the 18th Dynasty, but here the twin handles are vestigial monkey-form lugs. Beneath each of these, on either side, are two crudely incised hieroglyphic texts which convey the usual wish for the opening of a good year and an invocation to the Memphite city god Ptah. The contents and purpose of these Late Period vessels can only be surmised, but it is possible they were used to hold water collected during the annual rising of the Nile—for the Egyptians, the start of the New Year. Most examples seem to have been produced at the end of the 26th Dynasty, under Apries and Amosis II.
213. Acheloos aryballos
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
Faience
ECM 541
214. Hedgehog aryballos
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
Faience
ECM 554
239. Hedgehog aryballos
Late Period, 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BC
Faience
ECM 1711
Although discovered in Egypt in relatively large numbers, these small oil flasks are in fact Greek in type—in the Greek terminology, aryballoi. Some scholars would argue for them an East Greek origin, on the basis of the large quantities which have been found on the island of Rhodes. Equally possible—given the material, and the Egyptian inspiration of the hedgehog vessels, in particular—is that the type originated, at least in part, in the important Greek trading colony of Naukratis, which was established in the Nile Delta during the reign of Pharaoh Amosis II.
238. Relief plaque
Ptolemaic Period, 323-30 BC
Faience
ECM 1703
By Ptolemaic times, the manufacture of faience had again reached renewed heights of sophistication. This fragment of a double-sided relief plaque carries on its principal face the representation of a naked girl weighed down with ducks, leading a cow through a papyrus grove—the whole executed in superb, shallow relief in three subtle shades of green.
240. Bowl fragment with warrior
Ptolemaic Period, 323-30 BC
Faience
ECM 1734
243. Perfume flask
Ptolemaic Period, 323-30 BC
Faience
ECM 1769
249. Relief-decorated jar fragment
Roman Period, 1st century AD, or before
Faience
ECM 1895
242. Bowl fragment
Roman Period, 1st century AD, or before
Faience
ECM 1737
The fragmentary perfume flask (a shape referred to by the Greeks as a lekythos) and accompanying bowl fragments exhibited here are executed in a type of faience common after the 3rd century BC. While the lekythos is decorated somewhat schematically in a pale bichrome blue, the smaller bowl fragment carries a scene of hunting in a more daring palette, showing a cloaked and oval-shielded warrior spearing an ibex—a version of the traditional Egyptian theme of order triumphant over chaos, here realized in a deliberately Hellenistic visual vocabulary. The colours of the shallow, relief-decorated jar fragment, and in particular the larger bowl fragment, demonstrate clearly that the intense blues of the Third Intermediate Period and before, if no longer generally in vogue, have not been forgotten and can still be achieved.
CASE 36
233. Lamp on stand
Roman Period, 3rd century AD, or later
Bronze
ECM 1498
The principal light-source in the Roman-Egyptian house was the oil lamp, with the vast majority of examples encountered having been mass-produced in moulded clay. The lamp exhibited here, cast in bronze and still mounted on its original tripod stand, is in quite a different league. The style of the piece is purely classical, and indistinguishable from dozens of similar high-status examples recovered from the ruins of Pompeii and other Roman sites. The imagery of the bronze group which serves as a handle is the legendary wrestling match of Heracles and Antaeus—the mythic being whose source of strength was contact with the earth, lost when he was lifted.
216. Children’s doll
Roman Period, 3rd century AD, or later
Bone
ECM 604
217. Children’s doll
Roman Period, 3rd century AD, or later
Bone
ECM 605
The two children’s dolls of the Roman Period shown here have one thing in common with the much earlier, Middle Kingdom specimen displayed elsewhere in this exhibition—and that is the simplicity of their manufacture. Both of these later dolls have been fashioned from a single animal bone—doubtless a leftover from the dinner table—either by using it as is, with simple facial features applied in a rudimentary fashion to one end, or by rudely carving to shape. Similar dolls could be found still in use in Egyptian villages until quite recently.
235. Storage vessel fragment with horse decoration
Roman Period, 4th century AD, or later
Painted pottery
ECM 1510
The geographical origins of this unusual sherd from a large, decorated storage vessel are uncertain, but it clearly dates from the later Roman Period. The modernistic treatment of the subject matter, in particular the horse’s eye, is remarkable.
CASE 37
251. Boy with goose
Roman Period, 3rd century AD, or later
Ivory
ECM 1904
219. Relief-decorated cylinder-vessel fragment
Roman Period, 1st century AD or later
Faience
ECM 801
The fine carving of a naked, tousle-haired boy—a far cry from the crude bone dolls exhibited elsewhere in this exhibition—is a late representation of the god Harpocrates, shown in association with one of the sacred creatures of the god Amun, the goose. The composition is more familiar in terracotta, of which several more readily recognizable examples exist—with the principal figure sporting a stylized side-lock of youth and double crown, as well as a cornucopia or bundle of grain to symbolize (together with his plumpness) fertility. The fragmentary faience cylinder vessel shown alongside carries a somewhat earlier relief version of the same subject matter.
248. Head from a female sphinx
Roman Period, 2nd century AD
Painted terracotta
ECM 1892
As a complete example of the type in Leiden demonstrates, this head comes from a couchant, brightly coloured terracotta sphinx, of a type generally found positioned in pairs at the entrance to a funerary monument. The intended subject of the complete piece and its missing pair will have been the goddess Isis and her sister Nephthys—the traditional mourners at the funeral of the murdered Osiris, lord of the Underworld, with whom all Egyptians became associated in death. Despite its mythic background, the treatment of the head is purely Hellenistic, with the goddess displaying the typical frisure of the period.
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232. Roundel with head of Medusa
Roman Period
Ivory
ECM 1497
218. Aphrodite appliqué
Roman Period
Bone
ECM 614
230. Aphrodite appliqué
Roman Period
Bone
ECM 1491
Carvings in bone, of greater or lesser naivety, are frequently encountered on Romano-Egyptian sites. Several examples of ox-bone carvings such as these were collected by Myers, and as a later finds have demonstrated they will have originally been attached as decoration to wooden boxes. The two larger specimens shown here carry modestly competent representations of the naked Aphrodite (Venus), goddess of love—suggesting that the caskets to which they were once attached had been intended for cosmetic items, or were even marriage-related.
CASE 38
98. Portrait head of a man
Roman Period, circa AD 130
Painted and gilded plaster
ECM 1576
100. Portrait of a military officer
Roman Period, circa AD 165
From El-Rubaiyat
Encaustic on limewood
ECM 1473
Of the three excellent encaustic paintings now at Eton—two depicting bearded men and the third a youth—this is the most famous. It depicts an anonymous adult male, shown wearing the tunic and decorated sword strap typical of an officer of the Roman army. The anonymous subject’s hairstyle and beard recall sculptured portraits of the emperor Lucius Verus (ruled AD 161-169), during whose reign the officer will have served. The panel is here displayed with a fine plaster mummy head of similar date, with inlaid, painted-glass eyes and lavish use of gilding. Such expanses of gold of course reflect the owner’s far from modest status, but are here employed primarily for the untarnishable metal’s connotations of eternity and everlasting life.
CASE 39
254. Portrait of a young man
Roman Period, AD 120-160
From El-Rubaiyat
Encaustic on wood
ECM 2150
Although damaged, this panel portrait is in many ways the most compelling of Eton’s encaustic mummy paintings. Three stages of physical development were clearly distinguished by the ancient artists—pre-adolescent, adolescent (up to the age of about 20), and fully adult. The present portrait, with its downy moustache, falls into the second age category—when males were conceived as being at the peak of their sexual desirability and procreative power. As in other paintings of the class, the anonymous subject is shown wearing a plain white tunic. Traces of gilded plaster, where the exposed image was anciently framed within the mummy bandaging, are visible on the panel’s left side.
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