The battle of Kadesh is one of the world’s largest chariot battles, fought beside the Orontes River, King Ramesses II sought to wrest Syria from the Hittites and recapture the Hittite-held city of Kadesh. There was a day of carnage as some 5,000 chariots charged into the fray, but no outright victor. The Kadesh Treaty...
Taken from Spell 144 of the ‘Book of the Dead’, they were the keepers of the gates of the Underworld, menacing the enemies of order with their sharpened knives. “Egyptians were probably the first to be aware of the nobility inherent in the human form and to express it in art. One can sense the...
Relief fragment showing a carpenter with a stubbled beard squatting on scaffolding and working on a wooden object with his adze. Contrary to custom he is shown disheveled and unshaven. New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, ca. 1292-1189 BC. From Deir el-Medina, West Thebes. Now in the Staatlich Museum, Berlin. The beard was a sign of neglect...
The goddess Taweret is depicted with pendulous breasts and swollen belly, which recalls the image of a pregnant woman. The goddess usually wears a female wig that can be topped with a feathered headdress, a modius (a cylinder-shaped headdress with a flat end), or with horns and a sun disc. Another recurring element is the...
This wooden statuette of a woman depicting her wears a wig with a wreath of leaves and a lotus flower on her forehead. In her left hand she holds a sistrum (a rattle used in the cult of female deities), whose handle only is preserved. The right arm, which was carved separately and attached with...
A bronze Khopesh sword inscribed with the cartouches of King Ramesses II. The Khopesh is an Egyptian sickle-sword that evolved from battle axes. The blunted edge of the weapon’s tip also served as an effective bludgeon, as well as a hook. This Khopesh sword is made of bronze with a typical length of 57.5 cm....
This bust of Ramesses II closely resembles a statue of Ramesses in the Egyptian Museum of Turin. However, the Cairo piece wears a long wig, rather than the Blue Khepresh Crown worn by the Turin statue (Cat. 1380). A uraeus can be seen at the king’s forehead, and he is shown with a young face,...
A Wall painting from the Tomb of Seti I (KV17) depicting the the journey of the sun god Amun-Re in his ram-headed form, standing in his solar barque, detail from the ‘Book of Gates’. The Book of Gates is an ancient Egyptian funerary text dating from the New Kingdom. It narrates the passage of a...
This ostracon depicting a female musician lute player, wearing a broad collar and holding a musical instrument that is functionally close to a modern lute. This pose is common in tomb scenes. The grace and beauty of the musician were caught with a few deft strokes of a master’s brush. The woman is facing left....
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...
