Silver seated falcon

This is a solid-cast silver statuette of a falcon headed deity with a plaited wig inlaid with lapis lazuli. The figure almost definitely would have been used as a cult statue and was originally covered in sheet gold, some of which still remains.

Hieroglyphic texts and temple reliefs show that the ancient Egyptians included divine imagery into their temple sanctuaries. Literary and religious texts describe holy and semi-divine persons as having gold-plated limbs and hair made of genuine lapis lazuli, and it appears that the Egyptians used these rare materials to produce their most important cult images. It is not surprising, then, that only this rather intact fairly sized cult statue of an Ancient Egyptian deity appears to have survived to our day.

○ Silver in Ancient Egypt (Met Museum article)

Several Egyptian deities were represented with falcon heads, the most well-known of which was Horus. Because this deity no longer has its crown or other divine attributes, it cannot be positively identified; however, the figure most likely does not represent any of the falcon-headed deities associated directly with the sun or moon, because they would have worn a crown with a sun disc or a crescent moon attached with a mortise and tenon that rested directly on their heads. The large cylinder on the Shumei figure’s head is more suitable for attaching a double crown, as worn by Horus the Elder (Haroeris) or Horus son of Isis (Harsiesi).

The Ancient Egyptians placed divine images in their temple sanctuaries, as evidenced by hieroglyphic writings and temple reliefs. Literary and religious sources describe celestial and semi-divine entities as having limbs plated with gold and hair made of genuine lapis lazuli1, and the Egyptians appear to have created their most important cult statues from these rare materials. It is not remarkable, then, that only one somewhat undamaged big cult statue of an ancient Egyptian deity appears to have survived to our time.

According to depictions of seated deities on Egyptian reliefs and paintings, the silver figure most likely held an ankh, the hieroglyphic sign for life, in his right hand and a was-scepter in his left. Because there are no reliably dated sculptural examples of falcon-headed deities until the Graeco-Roman period (332 B.C.-A.D. 395), experts have dated the silver figure to between the New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 B.C.) and the Late Dynastic Period (around 715-332 B.C.). The figure’s proportions, with its long-waisted, slender body, appear to be most reminiscent of early Ramesside statues, such as Seti I’s standing alabaster figures at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and a kneeling figure of the same monarch at The Metropolitan Museum.

Summary:

Silver seated falcon deity (with lapis lazuli, rock crystal and gold)
New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, c. 1295–1213 B.C.
Province Unknown.
Now at the Miho Museum, Kyoto, Japan.