AN EGYPTIAN AMETHYST BES LATE PTOLEMAIC PERIOD TO ROMAN PERIOD, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN AMETHYST BES AMULET, LATE PTOLEMAIC TO ROMAN PERIOD, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.-1ST CENTURY A.D. Carved in the round from a translucent amethyst of pale lilac tone shading to deeper violet at the lower body, the amulet takes the form of the frontal mask of the god Bes, surmounted by a ribbed suspension loop pierced horizontally for stringing. The broad, flattened face is worked in low relief with the deity's characteristic features: heavy brow, wide-set eyes, flattened nose, and a protruding tongue framed by a full beard rendered as a central tongue-like element flanked by symmetrical striations. Above the brow rises the tall plumed crown, incised with radiating grooves suggesting the tiered feathers standard to the god's iconography. The reverse is left plain and gently convex. Traces of earthen encrustation remain in the recesses of the carving and around the loop. Bes is among the most enduring of Egyptian domestic deities, a leonine dwarf-god whose apotropaic power was directed at the protection of the household, of women in childbirth, of infants, and of sleepers vulnerable to nocturnal harm. His grotesque frontality is itself the mechanism of protection, the confronting stare intended to repel malevolent forces. Worn suspended at the neck or wrist, amulets of this type accompanied the wearer through daily life and were placed with the dead as continuing safeguards. By the late Ptolemaic and Roman periods, Bes had expanded well beyond his older role, absorbing solar and cosmic associations and appearing on healing stelae, magical gems, and personal ornaments across Egypt and the wider Mediterranean. The choice of amethyst is significant. Prized in Egypt from the Middle Kingdom for its violet clarity, the stone was mined principally at Wadi el-Hudi in the Eastern Desert and, in the later periods, drawn increasingly from imported sources. It was associated in Graeco-Roman thought with sobriety and protection from intoxication, and its use for a Bes amulet unites two apotropaic vocabularies, the Egyptian and the classical, in a single object. Hardstone amulets of this quality were not casual ornaments but personal talismans, cut by lapidaries working to the same specialist standards as those producing engraved gems for finger rings. This amulet exemplifies the persistence and adaptation of pharaonic protective iconography in the Graeco-Roman milieu, where a traditional Egyptian deity is executed in a stone whose meaning resonated equally with Hellenistic and Roman wearers. Its small scale, translucent material, and confrontational frontality are characteristic of the personal amuletic production of the period, in which older religious forms were reworked in luxury media for a cosmopolitan clientele. Dimensions: Height: 1.8cm

图片