The colossal statue of Akhenaten serves as a significant archaeological and historical artifact, shedding light on the reign of this unique king and the religious revolution he initiated. In this sculpture, Akhenaten is depicted wears the Pschent or the Double Crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, as well as the Khat headdress. The statue is...
“In some versions of the Egyptian mythology, the sun god was born from a blue lotus that emerged from the primeval waters. The flower itself could be identified with the great goddess who gave birth to the sun. The blue lotus came to be a general symbol of rebirth. It was also the emblem of...
Nebamun is shown hunting birds, in a small boat with his wife Hatshepsut and their young daughter, in the marshes of the Nile. Such scenes had already been traditional parts of tomb-chapel decoration for hundreds of years and show the dead tomb-owner ‘enjoying himself and seeing beauty’, as the hieroglyphic caption here says. Yet this...
This gold pomegranate vase was part of a votive offering dedicated to the cat goddess Bastet in her temple at Tell Basta. The body of this vase is decorated with small, embossed beads shaped like pomegranates, which were among the fruits introduced into Egypt from the East at the beginning of the New Kingdom. The...
Among the series of ornate boxes discovered in the burial of Tutankhamun, this example is especially striking despite the damage it suffered in antiquity. The casket was found broken and displaced, its lid lying in one corner of the chamber and its body heaved into another, its legs and panels crushed under the weight of...
This flared bowl with crocodiles and a flattened rim is typical of the pottery production of the early Predynastic Period. Generally characterized by the red coloring of the surfaces, decoration consists of geometric motifs or stylized plants or animals rendered by means of rapid brushstrokes in white paint. On the outside of this particular vessel,...
On this finely carved slab, five elegant women attend to a fragrant art: the pressing of lotus blossoms. Three clasp the long-stemmed flowers in hand, while two twist bulging sacks filled with petals, coaxing forth the nectar which drips into the vessel below. At first glance it is an image of industry, yet beneath lies...
“By curious coincidence, the breakthrough that had allowed ancient Egyptian writing to be first deciphered, and had thus opened up the study of pharaonic civilization through its numerous inscriptions, had occurred exactly a century before. In 1822, the French scholar Jean-François Champollion published his famous Lettre à M. Dacier, in which he correctly described the...
This clay head found in one of the most recent levels of the settlement at Merimde Beni Salama, a village in the Western Delta is enigmatic. This is one of the earliest known representations of a human head in Egypt. The perfectly oval face has features in the form of depressions of various shapes and...
The mummy mask of Tjuyu or Thuya is made of cartonnage covered with a thin layer of gold foil. When found it was completely covered with the remains of its linen shroud removed by the restorer. A few fragments of the shroud, now blackened with age, still adhere to the wig and part of the...
