Censer of gilt wood. In the form of a human arm. The hand holds a goblet. Part of the censer is a box in the form of a cartouche. The end is in the form of the head of a sparrow hawk. On the front of the goblet is a uraeus.
Gallery number:29 – Upper FloorPeriod: Ptolemaic Period
Place of discovery: Saqqara
Size: Height: 35 cm, Width: 90 cm
Material: Papyrus
This papyrus was part of a funerary papyrus of Djoser, a priest of the goddesses Bastet, the lady of Memphis. It showing the Spell 125 from the Book of the Dead, better known as the Judgment of Osiris or The Weighing of the Heart. The goddess Maat, embodiments of the proper order of the Egyptian cosmos, lead the deceased into the hall of Judgment before the balance and his heart is weighed opposite the feather of the goddess Maat, embodiment of cosmic order and ethical behavior. To the left, Osiris, God of the underworld, sits on a throne inside a small kiosk and presides over the scene. He wears the white crown of Upper Egypt, and a curved beard that identifies him as divine. before him, the offering table and the ibis-headed god Thoth, holding scribal equipment in one hand to record the result of the trial.
At the culmination of this ceremony, the heart, seen as the center of intelligence and emotion, was weighed against a squatting figure of the goddess Maat by the jackal-headed god of embalming, Anubis. If the scales balanced, Osiris accepted the deceased into his company and granted him eternal life. If not, the heart would be eaten by the monster Ammut (the Devourer), shown as a hippopotamus with a crocodile head, and the person would die forever.
Period: Ptolemaic, Macedonian, reign of Philip Arrhidaeus (c. 323-317 BC)
Place of Discovery: Tell Atrib (Athribis)
Size: Statue 78x43x25 cm, Base 93x53x38 cm
Material: Granodiorite
This Statue of Djed-Hor the Saviour, shows him squatting on a cushion and leaning against a pillar with his arms crossed on the knees in the typical block-statue form. He is wearing a garment that tightly envelops his entire body. The entire statue, apart from his face, hands and feet, is covered with hieroglyphic talismanic magical inscriptions arranged in columns against the stings and bites of crocodiles, snakes and scorpions.
Between his crossed arms and feet is a stele of Horus on the crocodiles. Horus the child (Harpokrates) stands naked upon two crocodiles, wearing the side-lock of youth with one finger held to his lips and the god Bes’s mask above his head. His hands grasp a number of dangerous animals; two snakes and a lion in his left hand, and a scorpion and an oryx in his right. He is flanked by the lotus of Nefertum on his left and a is and the papyrus crowned with a falcon on his right.
The statue is resting on a large plinth/socle that is entirely covered with inscriptions and contains two offering basins that are united by a channel. The smaller offering basin is located in front of the block statue, while a larger offering basin extends over the rest and surrounds the statue on four sides.
These types of statues could belong to a god or a person and were erected in public places as healing statues to gain divine protection, cure stings and bites, or even to prevent intimidating dangers. The general public would pour water, wine, or any other liquids onto the statue and drink it after it gathered inside the basin. These liquids were imbued with the protection of the powerful spells inscribed on the statue.
Period: Ptolemaic Period, reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes (c. 204–180 BC)
Place of discovery: Southern Upper Egypt, Armant, Bucheum
Size: H 73.00 cm W 50.00 cm D/L 16.00 cm
Material: Limestone, gold, pigment (unspecified)
Dedicated by Ptolemy V to the god Buchis, the sacred bull who identified with the war god Montu that was worshipped at Armant, this round-topped stela was discovered in the underground necropolis known as Bucheum, which was devoted to the burials of Buchis’s earthly embodiments. Stelae such as this one was discovered in their thousands and were marked for each burial in the Bucheum.
Buchis was first mentioned in Egyptian religion during the 30th Dynasty in the reign of Nectanebo II. He was represented as a white bull with a black face, but according to the classical author Macrobius, his colour changed each hour of the day.
This stela is protected at the top by a winged sun-disk, representing Horus of Edfu, under which a scarab and a djed pillar (the symbol of the god Osiris) is flanked by two uraei and two crouching jackals. The body of the stela is separated from the upper register by the hieroglyphic symbol of the sky. The second register depicts Ptolemy V seen in an Egyptian king’s robes, offering the hieroglyphic sign for fields to a statue of Buchis Bull, who is crowned with a sun-disk with two uraei and double feathers. The gilded statue is placed on a gilded base and protected by a hovering falcon, an allusion to the sky and sun gods Horus and Re, holding a fan and a shen-ring (symbol of infinity).
Five horizontal lines of hieroglyphic text in the third register provide details of the dedication of the stela, made by Ptolemy V and his consort, Cleopatra I, in the 25th year of his reign.
Period: Ptolemaic Period, Ptolemy III Euergetes I (c. 246–221 BC)
Place of discovery: Kom el-Hisn (Imu; Momemphis), Temple of Sekhmet-Hathor
Size: H 204 cm – W 93 cm – L 70 cm
Material: Limestone
The Decree of Canopus is a trilingual inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek. It commemorates a great assembly of priests held at Canopus to honour Ptolemy III Euergetes, his wife Queen Berenice and Princess Berenice. It is the second earliest instance of a series of trilingual inscriptions, the most famous example of which is the Rosetta Stone.
This round-topped stela is decorated with a frieze of stars that runs around the top of the stela’s lunette. It depicts a winged sun-disk with pendant uraei and shen-ring (symbol of infinity) hanging from their bodies beside the names of Horus Behedet and the cartouches of the king and the queen. Below is a register containing sixteen divinities and kings facing to the centre (eight on each side), where the innermost figure on the proper right side is Ptolemy III. Beneath are one hundred and ten horizontal lines of inscription; the top twenty-six of which are in hieroglyphs; the second twenty are in the Demotic script, while the final sixty-four are in Greek. The inscription describes various subjects such as military campaigns, famine, governmental organisation and Egyptian religion in Ptolemaic Egypt. It mentions the king’s donations to the temples and his support for the Apis and Mnevis (Mer-wer) cults. It declares the deceased princess Berenike as a goddess and creates a cult for her. Finally, it orders the decree to be incised in stone or bronze in both hieroglyphs and Greek, and to be displayed in the temples.
This stela inaugurates the most accurate solar calendar known to the ancient world, with three hundred and sixty-five and quarter days per year. The upper-right corner of the stela is missing a piece, and the right edge of it is damaged.
Place of discovery: Middle Egypt, Tuna el-Gebel, Necropolis, Funerary House No. 21 Petosiris
Size: H 39.00 cm W 53.00 cm D/L 193.00 cm
Material: Pinus halepensis wood (conifers), glass
The tomb of Petosiris, the High Priest of god Thot in Hermopolis, is a unique example of this era. It has the appearance of a small temple from the Graeco-Roman period. The scenes from the tomb are a mixture of Egyptian, Greek and Persian influences and are of outstanding technical quality and rich symbolism.
The tomb holds the stone sarcophagus of Petosiris, in which two wooden anthropoid coffins were found. The innermost coffin depicts Petosiris wearing a divine beard and a long wig. The large eyes and bronze eyebrows that take the form of wedjat eyes, are inlaid with coloured glass. The body, wrapped in a mummiform garment, is decorated from chest to ankles with five vertical lines of inlayed hieroglyphic inscriptions, topped by a hieroglyphic sign of sky decorated with a band of stars, of which two-thirds is now missing. The hieroglyphic inscriptions and the band of stars are inlaid with glass coloured red, yellow, green, blue and white to imitate fine stones and precious materials. The inscriptions bear the name and the titles of Petosiris and the formula from Chapter 42 of the Book of the Dead, helping the deceased to overcome the difficulties of his journey towards the afterlife. The wood of the coffin shows some cracks and a small piece of the outer layer of wood is missing on the left side at the feet.
Period: Ptolemaic Macedonian Period/Argead Dynasty, reign of Alexander IV (c. 317–310 BC)
Place of discovery: Thebes East, Karnak Temple (Ipet-Isut)
Size: H 280.00 cm W 61.00 cm D/L 106.00 cm
Material: Red granite
The mixture of Hellenistic Greek and traditional Egyptian styles are well illustrated in this colossal statue of a Ptolemaic king. The sculpture of the body is beautifully rendered, with elegantly and simply modelled idealized elements typical of Egyptian art.
The nemes crown is sharply turned at the shoulders and set back on the forehead to display the curls across the forehead. The face of the king is modelled in Hellenistic style, but maintains an idealised approach to the portrait. The round eyes are heavily rimmed and the brows are simple and his Grecian nose is long, narrow and straight. The mouth is narrow but full and the median line of the mouth is visible on the bottom lip, and he has a prominently rounded chin. He is wearing the royal shendyt kilt and stands with his left leg is forward, arms by the sides holding the traditional enigmatic cylindrical objects. This statue remains unidentified due to the lack of inscriptions.
Place of discovery: Delta Western, Kom Geif (Naukratis; el-Nibeira; el-Niqrash), Great Mound
Size: H 360.00 cm
Material: Granite
Horemheb was an official who served under the first Ptolemies. He had control over the Greek colony of Naukratis, which was established in the 26th Dynasty on the Canopic branch of the Nile river as trading post for the Greeks in Egypt. Herodotus mentions that King Amasis gave Naukratis to Greek colonisers, but there is an evidence that it was already founded under King Psamtek I.
Although this statue dates to the Ptolemaic Period, its iconography and style is almost exclusively Egyptian. It depicts Horemheb with his left leg forward, arms by his sides, holding the traditional enigmatic cylindrical objects. His wig has rounded ends on the back of his shoulder, leaving his ears uncovered and he is wearing the shendyt kilt. The face is damaged, the left arm is missing, part of kilt is missing and the left leg and right foot restored.
The back pillar of the statue is inscribed with hieroglyphic inscriptions bearing his name, titles and prayers to gods Amun, Mut and Khonsu (the Theban Triad) together with god Min. The size of this statue is usually reserved for kings and gods, indicating that Horemheb was considered an elite.