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...
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...
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,...
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...
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....
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,...
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...
Stone relief plaque depicting a Ram, representation of god Amun, or of Banebdjedet of Mendes. The two sets of horns on this exemplary portrayal of a ram reflect ancient Egyptian sculptors’ simultaneous close observation of nature and strict adherence to artistic tradition. The elongated corkscrew horns atop the ram’s head belong to a species that...
Black stone amulet carved into the shape of the sema hieroglyph, which means ‘unite’ and similar concepts. It is often described as a pair of lungs attached to a windpipe, genitalia, and sometimes both simultaneously. The Sema was often placed on a mummy’s chest in order to give it life in the underworld. As an...
This small faience vessel in the shape of a hedgehog was most likely a perfume or cosmetic vessel. Texts and images tell us that both men and women wore eye makeup and applied perfume. Perfume was associated with the divine in ancient Egypt and the presence of a deity is sometimes signaled by a sweet...
