Gain insights into a vanished world with this unique look at powerful hieroglyphs. Barry Kemp presents one hundred of hieroglyphs, their pronunciations, their history, and meanings, revealing aspects of day-to-day life in ancient Egypt. “How characters used in ancient Egyptians’ writing system offer a fascinating insight into their priorities, concerns, and beliefs, and entire worldview....
This statuary group is representing the scribe Pendua and his wife Nefertari. The couple embrace in an unusual depiction, seated on a wide high-backed seat with their arms passing behind the other so that their hands rest on each other’s shoulder. Both Pendua and Nefertari (whose name was the same as the reigning queen) wear...
As the chief intermediary between gods and men, the Egyptian king is often shown kneeling in adoration. This silver statuette was undoubtedly part of a group composition in which the king faced a larger figure of a god. Temple inscriptions suggest that for much of Egypt’s history, silver was valued more highly than gold. However,...
This statue depicts Queen Nofret seated upon a throne, adorned with a Hathor wig characterized by three distinct tresses. One voluminous tress cascades down her back, while two wavy strands are drawn forward, wrapped in slender bands that culminate over her breasts in spirals encircling decorative disks. A uraeus—a rearing cobra—rests on her forehead, symbolising...
In this fragment painting from the Tomb of the Dancers, the girls are performing to the accompaniment of of clapping and finger-snapping, under the supervision of two male overseers. The occasion is perhaps a festival dance in honor of Hathor, goddess of music and dancing and also protector of the tombs of Western Thebes. “The...
A gilded, wooden statuette of King Tutankhamun stands on a wooden boat that is painted to represent a papyrus boat. Its details are picked out in gold leaf. The king, wearing the Deshret Red Crown of Lower Egypt, holds a harpoon poised to strike an unseen enemy. According to the myth of Osiris and Isis,...
This bust head belongs to Mentuemhat, the Fourth Prophet of Amun, Mayor of Thebes and Governor of Upper Egypt. He was the greatest man in Upper Egypt during the 25th Dynasty and at the beginning of the 26th Dynasty. The head depicts him as an old man who is bald. He has narrow eyes, well-defined...
This statuette of a hippo was molded in faience, a crushed quartz glazed and fired at a relatively low temperature. Copper salts in the glaze impart the bright blue or blue-green color so characteristic of faience objects. Over the animal’s naturalistic shape, the craftsman painted lily plants that appear as a giant tattoo. Small sculptures...
The statue depicts Ranefer, standing and is wearing an overlapped kilt of medium length. His hair was cut short and the eyes are painted. This splendid statue was found together with another statue, almost identical, in two niches in the chapel at his tomb at Saqqara. This one shows him in an old age while...
The Wadj amulet (also known as the papyrus column or scepter) is an Ancient Egyptian amulet in the shape of a papyrus stem. These amulets were made out of turquoise feldspar, as is indicated in the Book of the Dead. This faience amulet represents a papyrus column. Incised lines on the umbel delineate the leaves....
