Cosmetic Spoon with Lotus and Mandrake
To the Ancient Egyptian imagination, the blue lotus (Nymphaea caerulea) was far more than a waterborne bloom. Each evening, its petals folded and sank beneath the surface, only to rise and open anew with the sunrise. This daily rhythm made the flower an emblem of cosmic rebirth, mirroring the sun-god’s own journey through the night and his triumphant re-emergence at dawn.
In religious art, the child-god Horus is shown springing from a lotus, while in funerary texts the deceased prays to “open like the lotus” and be granted new life. The deity Nefertum, patron of perfumes and youthful beauty, wears a lotus on his brow and offers the fragrant blossom to ageing gods in order to refresh their senses. Lotus garlands scented banquets, lotus-shaped chalices flavoured wine, and cosmetic spoons, combined practical use with spiritual resonance: every dip into the perfumed recesses recalled the promise of renewal, purity and eternal awakening.
This finely crafted wooden ointment-spoon, dating to around 1350 B.C. in the late 18th Dynasty, evokes both aesthetic grace and symbolic richness. Shaped like a slender, tapering vessel, its ends curve upward into two closed lotus buds, framing a central blue lotus in full bloom. Crowning the flower is a delicately carved mandrake fruit, an ancient emblem of fragrance and fertility. The composition is not merely decorative: a small wooden peg allows the mandrake-topped lid to swivel open, revealing twin cavities hollowed within the lotus and berry, designed to hold scented oils or unguents.
Subtle incised lines mark the veining of the petals and the stippled surface of the fruit, once filled with green pigment that, though faded, still whispers of their former vibrancy. The sepals gleam with inlaid green paste, while traces of red at the base of each bloom suggest the warm glow of a lotus rising at dawn; imagery tied to the Ancient Egyptian belief in daily rebirth. Fine striations along the stems recall the twine that would have bound this botanical trio into a single, harmonious motif.
Objects such as this served not only as tools of personal adornment but as talismans of regeneration. They were placed in tombs as symbols of purity and renewal, their floral forms echoing the mythic cycle of the sun and the soul’s hoped-for awakening in the afterlife.
Summary:
Cosmetic Spoon with Lotus and Mandrake
New Kingdom, Eighteenth Dynasty, c. 1350 B.C.
British Museum. EA 5966
