Ptolemaic

Terracotta lamp with the head of a man

Terracotta lamp with the head of a man

This mold-made terracotta lamp has been carved in the shape of a Sub Saharan African man. It is open upon the top of the head and mouth. This lamp is one of twenty-five lamps of various designs, which dates from the Ptolemaic Period, c. 332-364 A.D. The Ancient Egyptians enjoyed almost caricature style belittling depictions...

Amulet of Isis, Horus, and Nephthys

Amulet of Isis, Horus, and Nephthys

According to the myth the sister goddesses Isis and Nepthys cared for the body of Osiris and later they protected his son Horus as a young child. The three deities depicted in this triad amulet are some of the main protagonists in the Osiride myth that tells the murder and revival of the god Osiris...

Torso of Amenpayom. Cleveland Art Museum. 1948.141

Torso of Amenpayom

Life-sized granodiorite torso inscribed for Amenpayom, the great army general of the district of Mendes in the Nile Delta.Ptolemaic Dynasty, 200–100 B.C.From Tanis, Egypt. Now at the Cleveland Art Museum. 1948.141

Vulture Headdress Inlay

Vulture Headdress

This inlay of a vulture headdress is said to have been discovered among the Treasure of Dendara, and dates from the Ptolemaic Period, c. 100 – 1 B.C., and is made from gold and over 100 semi-precious stones. Thin plates of over 100 perfectly cut precious stones were cut to make this delicate piece. The...

Relief of Sobek

Relief of Sobek

Detail of a bas relief depicting the crocodile headed god Sobek at Temple of Kom Ombo. Sobek was associated with the Nile River and was often depicted as a powerful and fearsome deity with the head of a crocodile and the body of a human. He was believed to have control over the waters and...

Weighing of the Heart Ceremony - Book of the Dead of Taysnakht

Book of the Dead of Taysnakht, daughter of Taymes

One of the best-known vignettes in the Book of the Dead of Taysnakht is that of the weighing of the heart (“psychostasia”) in the tribunal of the Double Truth, in the presence of Osiris and other gods of the netherworld. The heart of the deceased is placed on one pan of a pair of scales,...

Ptolemaic gold finger ring inscribed with the title Osiris

Ptolemaic gold finger ring inscribed with the title Osiris

Upon death, people who were thought to have lived moral lives were reborn in the afterlife as a form of the god Osiris. This Ptolemaic gold ring is inscribed with the title “Osiris,” followed by the owner’s names and titles, attesting to his faith that he would become one with the god after death. Gold...

Frontal view of the goddess Hathor, depicted as nude

Nude Hathor

This statue of the goddess Hathor was made from Egyptian Terracotta, or Brown Nile Silt, and dates from 400-200 B.C. The Ptolemaic influence in this depiction of Hathor is easy to see, as the statue resembles the soft nude bodies of the female deities of the Mediterranean, such as Hathor and Isis’s Greek counterpart, Aphrodite....

Sarcophagus of Nectanebo II

Sarcophagus of Nectanebo II

The conglomerate sarcophagus of Nectanebo II was discovered after being used as a bath in the Attarin Mosque, the former Church of St Athanasius, in Alexandria, Egypt. Drill holes at the bottom of the coffin, used for drainage, had been installed and are still very noticeable. Unfortunately, due to it being used as a bath,...

Amethyst head of Arsinoë II, Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 42.190

Amethyst head of Arsinoë II, Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt

Arsinoë II was a Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt, who also held the Egyptian titles of King of Upper & Lower Egypt, making her pharaoh. Being wife of King Lysimachus; a Thessalian officer and successor of Alexander the Great, and King of Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedon, Arsinoë was also the Queen of Macedonia, Thrace, and...