AN EGYPTIAN FAIENCE AMULET OF TWO HORUS FALCONS WITH INSCRIPTION ON REVERSE, LATE PERIOD TO PTOLEMAI

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN FAIENCE AMULET OF TWO HORUS FALCONS WITH INSCRIPTION ON REVERSE, LATE PERIOD TO PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, 664-30 B.C. Of rectangular plaque form, moulded in relief with two addorsed falcons flanking a central emblem that rises between them to form a small integral suspension loop at the summit. Each bird is shown in profile facing outward, seated upon the flat base with folded wings drawn back along the body, the plumage rendered in fine cross-hatched register to indicate the covert feathers and the primaries laid diagonally toward the tail. The central element between the two falcons rises as a tall ribbed shape terminating in the loop above. The whole is covered in a bright turquoise-blue glaze of even tone, with ochre encrustation gathered in the recesses of the moulding, and the underside forming a plain rectangular plinth. The paired falcons are to be read as manifestations of Horus, the sky god whose earthly incarnation was the Pharaoh and whose protective aspect made him among the most widely invoked deities in personal amuletic practice. Their addorsed pairing, symmetrical about a central axis, is a compositional formula associated with the doubling of divine power for apotropaic purposes, the two figures reinforcing the protection offered by one. The central ribbed element between them, integrated with the suspension loop, functions both as the practical means of wearing the amulet and as a stylised divine emblem uniting the pair. An inscription is reported on the reverse, not visible in the present view. Faience in ancient Egypt was never a substitute material. Its brilliant turquoise-blue, produced by the copper content of the alkaline glaze fused to a quartz-frit body, carried the symbolic charge of regeneration, of the Nile waters, and of the heavens, and the colour itself was understood as protective. Amulets of this type were produced in considerable numbers during the Late Period and into the Ptolemaic era, when the demand for personal protective imagery in faience reached its widest circulation, worn in life and included among the wrappings of the deceased. The moulded technique, which allowed the repeated production of small devotional objects from a single matrix, is characteristic of the workshops that supplied the temple precincts and their pilgrim traffic during these centuries. This amulet exemplifies the codified iconography of Late Period Horus amulets, in which the god's protective function is intensified by symmetrical doubling and delivered in the saturated turquoise glaze that was itself understood as an agent of divine favour. The clarity of the moulding and the survival of the suspension loop intact place it within the standard workshop production of the period, made for wear rather than for burial furniture alone. Dimensions: Length: 4.6cm

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