AN EGYPTIAN FAIENCE AMULET DEPICTING A FALCON, WITH A RAM HEAD, NEW KINGDOM, DYNASTY XVIII, CIRCA 13

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN FAIENCE AMULET DEPICTING A FALCON WITH A RAM HEAD, NEW KINGDOM, DYNASTY XVIII, CIRCA 1353-1336 B.C. Modelled in the round and standing upon an integral oval base, the amulet takes the form of a falcon seated with wings folded close against the body and tail extending to the rear as a broad stabilising support. The head, turned slightly and raised above hunched shoulders, is that of a ram, the muzzle heavy and blunt, with the curling horn indicated in low relief along the side of the skull and a small drilled recess marking the eye. The plumage of the body is only lightly indicated, the modeller relying on the compact silhouette and the contrast between smooth breast and folded wing to convey the bird. The turquoise-blue glaze is even across the surface, thinning at the higher points to a paler tone and pooling more deeply in the recesses, with scattered earthen encrustations adhering to the piece. The composite creature, a falcon body surmounted by a ram head, belongs to the syncretic iconography of solar and creator deities in New Kingdom Egypt. The ram-headed falcon most often stands for the nocturnal, westering aspect of the sun god, the form in which Ra passes through the underworld in the hours of the night, and it is closely associated with the ba of Ra and with the composite figure of Ra-Osiris. In amuletic use, such a figure served to place its bearer under the protection of the solar cycle, guaranteeing regeneration and safe passage, whether worn in life or included among the wrappings of the dead. Faience itself was not a neutral medium in Egyptian production. Its brilliant blue-green colour, achieved through a self-glazing siliceous paste, was understood as the substance of renewal, associated with the waters of the Nile, with vegetation, and with the turquoise sacred to Hathor. The material was therefore chosen for amulets of this kind not merely for its workability at small scale but because its colour reinforced the regenerative meaning of the figure it carried. Amulets of solar deities in bright turquoise faience are among the most consistent products of the New Kingdom workshops, and small-scale figural modelling of this quality reflects the sophistication of Eighteenth Dynasty faience technology at its height. The dating supplied places the piece within the Amarna horizon, a period in which solar theology was pushed to its most concentrated expression and in which small amuletic images of solar power circulated widely. Whether produced within that specific milieu or in the broader current of Eighteenth Dynasty solar devotion, the ram-headed falcon carried an unambiguous theological charge. This amulet exemplifies the compression of complex theological ideas into a miniature, wearable form that characterises New Kingdom faience production. The syncretism of ram and falcon, the choice of turquoise faience, and the reduction of the figure to its essential silhouette together demonstrate how amuletic craft carried the solar doctrine of the period into the daily and funerary lives of its wearers. Dimensions: Height: 2.4cm

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