The senet game board of Tutankhamun rests on a stand with animal-shaped legs attached to sledge runners. The stand and sledge are made of ebony. The top and bottom surfaces of the board are veneered with ivory and divided into compartments by raised strips. The game board has a drawer used as storage for the...
The wooden throne of Princess Sitamun is an example of the subtlety and elegance of Egyptian woodwork in the 18th Dynasty. The throne is made from red wood, covered in parts by a 4 mm thick veneer of red wood. The legs are shaped like lion’s paws. These paws sit atop high bases which are...
This plain bracelet is of unusual, delicate and simple design. It was found on the mummy of King Psusennes I. Among the jewelry found in Tanis, there were varieties of designs, mostly comprising stone scarabs and inlays of semiprecious stones and glass. The bracelet is in two parts of seven tubes connected by a hinge...
This gazelle mummy was probably raised at a temple specifically for the purpose of being mummified and used as a burial offering. Archaeologists have uncovered cemeteries containing millions of animal mummies. They weren’t pets—they were raised in large quantities to be mummified, then sold as religious offerings. Most Egyptian gods were associated with animals, and...
This amulet pendant of General Wendjebauendjed is in the shape of a standing figure of Isis. She is shown here as a woman with two horns over her head flanking the solar disk. The goddess Isis is wearing a tripartite wig with a protective uraeus, or rearing cobra, on the forehead. She is wearing a...
This strange combination couch of Tutankhamun represents the dreadful Ammit, the monster who waits during the final judgment in the court of Osiris and who devours the unjust deceased. Three ritual funerary couches were found in the antechamber of Tutankhamun. They are made of stuccoed gilded wood in the form of sacred animals whose eyes...
This rectangular stele made out of painted limestone shows Amenemhat with his wife, son, and daughter. All the figures are shown seated except his daughter. She stands before an offering table heaped with different kinds of offerings. The son is depicted seated between his mother and father. Beneath the seated lady, there is a basket containing...
When Re was in the underworld, he merged with Osiris, the god of the dead, and through it became the god of the dead as well. The union of the gods Re and Osiris (in the guise of a ram-headed mummy which wears the sun’s disk between its horizontal, corkscrew horns). The “Amduat”, like the...
The term hypocephalus refers to a piece of Late Period and Ptolemaic funerary equipment. It is specifically an amuletic disc made of cartonnage, bronze, textile, or rarely from papyrus and even wood, emulating a solar disc. It was made for Tasheritenkhonsu. Linen and plaster, inscribed in ink. It dates to the Late Period, 26th Dynasty,...
The both sides of the two dog palette are carved in low relief with scenes depicting the frenzy o an animal hunt. The imagery includes real animals, such as the pair of Cape hunting dogs that frame the top (from which the palette takes its name). They dogs are shown alongside mythical creatures, including felines...
