AN EGYPTIAN FAIENCE WEDJAT-EYE AMULET LATE PERIOD, DYNASTY XXVI-XXX, 664-343 B.C.

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AN EGYPTIAN FAIENCE WEDJAT-EYE AMULET, LATE PERIOD, DYNASTY XXVI-XXX, 664-343 B.C. Of circular openwork form, surmounted by a ribbed suspension loop and enclosing within its frame the wedjat, the sacred eye of Horus. The eye is rendered in low relief with a pronounced almond-shaped iris and cosmetic line extending to the right, above the characteristic curling teardrop marking below and the vertical striated cheek-feather to the lower right. The surrounding disc is pierced in three registers, allowing the eye to read clearly against the ground. The surface retains a pale cream glaze with warm brown earthen accretions gathered in the recesses and along the piercings, lending contrast to the modelled interior. The wedjat, sometimes transliterated as udjat, is among the most persistent apotropaic signs of the Egyptian repertoire. It commemorates the eye of Horus torn out by Seth and subsequently restored by Thoth, and by extension signifies wholeness, healing, and the return of order after violence. Worn on the body in life or bound within the mummy wrappings in death, wedjat amulets were understood to transfer that principle of restoration to their bearer, guarding against harm and repairing what was broken. The circular openwork format seen here is a less common variant than the standard plaque-form wedjat, and turns the sign into a self-contained emblem readable from both directions. Faience, the glazed non-clay ceramic body of powdered quartz and alkaline glaze, was itself charged with meaning in Egyptian thought. Its characteristic blue-green and pale hues were associated with regeneration, the waters of the Nile, and the flourishing vegetation of the inundation, so that the material and the amuletic subject reinforced one another. By the Late Period, workshops attached to temple precincts were producing wedjat amulets in considerable numbers, in a range of sizes and formats, for both funerary deposition and personal wear. This amulet exemplifies the Late Period reworking of a very ancient sign, in which the wedjat is set within a pierced roundel rather than the flat plaque of earlier dynasties, producing a compact, legible emblem in which material and iconography converge on a single protective purpose. Dimensions: Height: 2.3cm

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