AN EGYPTIAN AGATE TAWERET AMULET LATE PERIOD, DYNASTY XXVI-XXX, 664-343 B.C.

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN AGATE TAWERET AMULET, LATE PERIOD, DYNASTY XXVI-XXX, 664-343 B.C. Carved in the round from a warm orange-red agate, the amulet depicts the goddess Taweret standing upright on human-like hind legs, her hippopotamus head turned slightly to the proper right with jaws parted to reveal the teeth. The pendulous body is rendered with a swollen belly and heavy dorsal ridge, the forelimbs drawn close to the chest, and the surface carved with parallel striations along the back and flanks suggesting the mane or crocodilian hide traditionally worn across the goddess's shoulders. A pierced suspension loop rises from the crown of the head, indicating the piece was worn as a personal amulet. The stone retains encrustation in the recesses and a lightly matte surface consistent with long burial. Taweret, "the Great One," is among the most enduring apotropaic deities of the Egyptian pantheon. Composite in form, she combines the body of a pregnant hippopotamus, the limbs and paws of a lion, the tail of a crocodile, and human breasts, a fusion of animals understood in Egyptian thought as fiercely protective mothers. Her particular sphere was the safeguarding of women in pregnancy and childbirth and of infants in the vulnerable period following birth. Amulets of Taweret were worn in life and placed with the dead, and her image appears on birth bricks, headrests, magical wands, and household furniture from the Middle Kingdom onward. By the Late Period, when the present amulet was made, she had been assimilated into a wider protective role extending beyond the birth-chamber and appears in a broad range of materials for daily wear. The choice of agate is significant. The great majority of surviving Taweret amulets are executed in faience, and less frequently in steatite, lapis lazuli, or gold. Hardstone examples, and agate examples in particular, are less common and required a considerably greater investment of labour, since the stone had to be worked with abrasives rather than modelled and glazed. The warm carnelian-orange colour of the present stone would have carried its own resonance in an Egyptian context, red stones being associated with vitality, blood, and the solar disc, qualities appropriate to a goddess whose function was the protection of life at its most fragile moments. The small scale and the integrally carved suspension loop confirm that the piece was intended to be worn against the body, where the stone's warmth and colour were part of its efficacy. This amulet exemplifies the persistence and refinement of Taweret imagery in the hardstone amuletic production of the Late Period, when older Middle and New Kingdom types were revisited in more prestigious materials for a private clientele. Its combination of a canonical iconographic type with a less usual medium places it among the more considered examples of Late Period personal devotion. Dimensions: Height: 3cm

图片