aegis;
figure-fitting(possibly);
votive offering(possibly)
- Description
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Solid-cast aegis in copper alloy; depicting a lioness (?) head represented in profile, wearing a hathoric crown and broad collar; hollow sections in sun-disc of crown and broad collar, which were supposed to receive coloured paste and/or glass inlays, but not preserved; cylindrical tube behind to fix the fitting on a figure (?); corroded with lots of incrustations.
- Production date
- 664 BC - 31 BC
- Dimensions
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Height: 2.65 centimetres
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Width: 2 centimetres
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Depth: 1.20 centimetres
- Curator's comments
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Object owned and held by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. This record is included in the British Museum database as part of the Museum’s Naukratis Project, a research collaboration that aims to virtually re-unite finds from the ancient port city of Naukratis, now distributed over 80 museums worldwide.
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The head of the lioness is represented in profile, and not in a frontal way, which is unusual for an aegis (see more common examples: Weiss 2012, Pl. 63).
Deities depicted on aegis are principally goddesses, chiefly Isis, Hathor and Sekhmet as well as other lion-headed goddesses.
On bronze aegis: Grenier 2002, 187-191; Roeder 1956, § 633-640; Weiss 2012, 852-858, Pl. 63-64 (esp. Nr. 1267 for this specimen).
Grenier, J.-C. 2002, Les Bronzes du Museo Gregoriano Egizio, Vatican City.
Roeder, G. 1956, Ägyptische Bronzefiguren, Mitteilungen aus der Ägyptischen Sammlung 6, Berlin.
Weiss, K. 2012, Ägyptische Tier- und Götterbronzen aus Unterägypten: Untersuchungen zu Typus, Ikonographie und Funktion sowie der Bedeutung innerhalb der Kulturkontakte zu Griechenland, Ägypten und Altes Testament 81.
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Relatively poor
- Acquisition date
- 1887
- Department
- External
- Additional IDs
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Miscellaneous number: AN1888.172 (Accession Number)
