AN EGYPTIAN LAPIS LAZULI CAT AMULET LATE PERIOD TO PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, 664-30 B.C.

拍品描述

AN EGYPTIAN LAPIS LAZULI CAT AMULET, LATE PERIOD TO PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, 664-30 B.C. Carved in the round from a single piece of deep blue lapis lazuli, the feline is shown seated upright on an integral oval plinth, the forelegs vertical and joined, the haunches drawn in beneath the body, the long tail curling forward along the right flank. The head is turned slightly and lifted, with rounded muzzle, incised mouth, and small triangular ears set close to the crown. Behind the shoulders a cylindrical suspension loop pierced horizontally allows the amulet to be worn or attached. The surface retains the natural mottling of the stone, ranging from strong ultramarine to paler grey-blue veining, with earthen deposits gathered in the recesses of the base and along the underside. The seated cat is one of the standard forms of the goddess Bastet in her benign aspect, distinct from her leonine manifestation as Sekhmet. Worn in life as a protective charm and placed with the dead among the wrappings of the mummy, such amulets invoked the goddess's guardianship of the household, of women in childbirth, and of the deceased in the passage to the afterlife. The pierced loop at the back confirms that the piece was intended for suspension, either from a cord at the neck or sewn onto funerary linen. The upright posture and forward-curling tail follow a compositional type established in bronze votive statuary of Bastet from Bubastis and repeated at small scale in faience, glass, and hardstone throughout the Late and Ptolemaic Periods. Lapis lazuli was not native to Egypt and reached the Nile Valley through long-distance trade from the mines of Badakhshan in what is now northeastern Afghanistan. Its cost and rarity restricted its use to objects of high status, to royal jewellery, and to amulets of particular ritual weight. The stone was itself considered sacred, associated with the night sky and with the hair of the gods, and its deep blue was understood to carry apotropaic properties independent of the form into which it was worked. A Bastet amulet in lapis therefore combined two protective agents, the iconography of the goddess and the intrinsic power of the material, and would have been commissioned at considerable expense. This amulet exemplifies the concentration of religious and material value that characterises the finest Late Period hardstone amulets, in which the choice of lapis lazuli elevates a standard devotional type into an object of elite personal piety. The compact modelling, the clear silhouette against the light, and the retention of the stone's natural depth of colour place it within the more accomplished end of the small-scale lapidary production of the period. Dimensions: Height: 5.1cm

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