AN EGYPTIAN LAPIS LAZULI CAT AMULET LATE PERIOD TO PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, 664-30 B.C.

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN LAPIS LAZULI CAT AMULET, LATE PERIOD TO PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, 664-30 B.C. Carved in the round from a deep blue lapis lazuli of strong saturation flecked with pale calcite inclusions and pyrite, the amulet shows a seated cat upon a rectangular plinth, its forelegs drawn vertically together at the front, hind legs folded beneath the body, and tail curled along the right flank. The head is held upright and turned slightly to face the viewer, with triangular ears pricked, almond eyes incised beneath cosmetic lines, and a small triangular nose above a closed muzzle. A pierced opening passes transversely through the body behind the forelegs, indicating the amulet's use as a suspension element. The plinth is dressed on its visible faces with a recessed rectangular panel framed by a raised border. Earthen accretions remain across the surface, lodged in the recesses of the ears, eyes, and along the join of the figure to its base. The cat in Egyptian religious thought is the animal sacred to Bastet, the feline goddess whose principal cult was centred at Bubastis in the eastern Delta. From the Third Intermediate Period onward, and with marked intensification during the Late Period, the seated cat became one of the most widely produced amuletic forms in Egypt, worn in life and deposited with the dead to invoke the protection of the goddess. Bastet's gentler aspect, distinguished from the leonine ferocity of Sekhmet, made her a guardian of the household, of women in childbirth, and of children, and the wearing of her sacred animal in amuletic form drew that protection to the bearer. The pierced suspension, characteristic of the type, confirms the object was intended to be strung and worn rather than merely interred. Lapis lazuli held a particular standing among the materials available to Egyptian craftsmen. Imported overland from the mines of Badakhshan in present-day Afghanistan, it travelled thousands of miles to reach Egyptian workshops and was correspondingly reserved for high-status commissions: temple inlays, royal jewellery, and amulets intended for persons of consequence. Its deep blue was identified in Egyptian thought with the night sky and with the hair of the gods, and the stone itself was named khesbed and praised in temple inventories alongside gold and silver. A cat amulet of this scale worked from solid lapis, rather than from the more usual faience or glazed composition, represents a substantial commission and would have signalled the means of its owner as clearly as the protective intent it carried. The carving here is competent and confident, with the planes of the face and the curve of the back reading cleanly, and the plinth finished with the architectural recessed panel familiar from larger stone votive bases. The proportions, the upright seated pose, and the treatment of the eyes accord with the established typology of Bastet cats of the first millennium B.C., spanning the Saite, late dynastic, and Ptolemaic horizons within which the form was produced in great numbers. This amulet exemplifies the highest material register of the Late Period Bastet cat: a form mass-produced in faience for general devotional use, but executed here in the most prestigious of imported hardstones. As such it occupies the small surviving group of lapis cat amulets that translate a popular votive type into the language of royal and elite commission. Length: 2.3cm

图片