Polished red ware double pottery jar in the shape of human breasts: handmade, with a turned rim. There is a dark red slip on the exterior and inside the rim, and it is burnished vertically. The jar is of an unusual shape with two lobes dependent on a single neck. Death was believed to be...
A cosmetic spoon in the form of a jackal. The jackal’s head is seen from above and is symmetrical, while the body is seen from the left. The tail of the jackal is long and thick and reaches to the paws of the outstretched back legs. The two forepaws are placed symmetrically one above and...
The fine wooden statue of Penbui in the picture, represented with his left leg forward, supports with his arms two rods, resting on his shoulders, on which there is the image of the god Ptah on the left and the god Amun on the right, both seated on a throne. Penbui wears a pleated skirt,...
Except for her missing mummy, almost everything buried with the noblewoman Meret-it-es, this inner coffin, the outer coffin that contained it, the gold that lay over the mummy and 305 statuettes. Although little is known about Meret-it-es, her funerary equipment reveals much about Egyptian religion. Remarkably thick and weighing 400 pounds, this coffin was meant...
The lungs and windpipe or sema amulet was often placed on a mummy‘s chest in order to give it life in the underworld. As such, the shape of this sign frequently appears in Egyptian art in scenes of the king uniting the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt. The Sema or Sma hieroglyph, used...
In this portrait statue, Senenmut is kneeling and grasps a symbolic cobra that supports a sun disk and cowhorns and rests on a base composed of two upraised arms (the hieroglyphic sign for ka)—a magical gesture intended to preserve life and ward off evil. The inscription consists of three vertical lines of incised hieroglyphs on...
A painted limestone relief depicting a standing woman in a pleated sheer linen blue dress. The woman wears a luxurious wig which is held in place by a diadem of blossoms. A band ties the wig about mid-way through its length with a knot in the back. This slightly pulls the wig back, exposing the...
In the Ptolemaic period, the mummy was not enclosed by a complete mummy case, but only by individual pieces of covering, including a mummy mask. Before placing the mummy in its coffin, a number of decorations could be applied. The outer mummy bandages could be painted, the mummy could receive a net of beads with...
The sarcophagus of the priest Pa-nehem-isis [Pnehmêse] is a remarkable example from the Ptolemaic Period, with its large face and its profusion of inscriptions and images, covering the whole surface. The figures have been carved in the hard stone with great precision. The deceased is wearing the tripartite wig and a broad collar. No other...
Some important artifacts were found in the tomb of the 1st Dynasty king Djet at Abydos in Petrie’s Tomb Z. Such as this wide-toothed comb, which is made of hippopotamus ivory. The king’s name is engraved inside the serekh, or palace facade. It is the earliest surviving depiction of the heavens symbolized by the outspread...
