AN EGYPTIAN FAIENCE SCARAB NEW KINGDOM, 18TH DYNASTY, REIGN OF HATSHEPSUT, 1473-1458 B.C.

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN FAIENCE SCARAB, NEW KINGDOM, 18TH DYNASTY, REIGN OF HATSHEPSUT, 1473-1458 B.C. Of oval form, moulded in turquoise-glazed faience, the flat underside carved in low relief within a single-line oval border. The design shows a recumbent sphinx facing right, its body extended in the traditional couchant pose, the head raised and surmounted by a tall element that reads as a royal headdress. Before the sphinx stands a small sun disc, and behind the figure rises a vertical sign identifiable as a uraeus or plumed element. The turquoise glaze survives strongly across the underside and preserves the earthy brown residues that fill the incised lines, giving the composition its legibility. The back of the scarab, visible above the field, retains the moulded outline of the beetle's clypeus and elytra. The recumbent sphinx before a solar sign belongs to the royal iconographic vocabulary of the early Eighteenth Dynasty. Under Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, the sphinx was deployed on small stamp seals as a compressed emblem of the ruler as the earthly manifestation of the sun god, the lion body signifying royal power and the human head signifying divine kingship. The sun disc placed before the muzzle articulates this identification directly, while the plumed or uraeus sign behind reinforces the royal reading. Scarabs of this type functioned simultaneously as amulets, as personal seals, and as votive offerings, the beetle form itself, kheper, invoking the daily rebirth of the sun and by extension the perpetual regeneration of the wearer. Faience carried specific meaning in the Egyptian context that extended well beyond its function as a moulded glazed material. Its brilliant turquoise-blue surface, achieved through a self-glazing quartz body coloured with copper, was understood as a substance charged with the powers of renewal, associated with the Nile, with vegetation, and with the eastern horizon at dawn. The colour itself signified rebirth. A scarab in this material therefore compounded meaning at every level: the form of the sacred beetle, the medium of regeneration, and the royal solar iconography of the underside converged in a single amuletic object small enough to be worn on the person. The reign of Hatshepsut saw a significant expansion in the production of faience scarabs, both as royal-name issues bearing the throne name Maatkare and as anepigraphic devices of the kind seen here, in which the royal ideology is expressed pictorially rather than through a cartouche. The workshops at Deir el-Bahri and the wider Theban region produced these objects in considerable numbers, distributing them as commemorative and votive items linked to the queen's building programmes and to the cult of Amun. This scarab exemplifies the pictorial mode of Hatshepsut-period seal production, in which royal ideology is condensed into a single emblematic image rather than spelled out in a name-cartouche. The clarity of the sphinx composition, the strength of the turquoise glaze, and the retention of the incised residues place it as a well-preserved example of the amuletic seals through which the theology of Eighteenth Dynasty kingship was carried on the bodies of the living. Dimensions: Length: 3.2 cm

图片