Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
The lioness deity, identified by an inscription as Wadjet, wears an ankle-length sheath typical of this class of bronzes. The upper part merges completely with the form of her torso, so that it appears as if her upper body is unclothed. Her crown is a composite of two tall feathers fronted by a sun disc cradled between two cow horns, the entirety of which was set on top of a modius with a large flaring uraeus at the front. Such headdresses are associated with the nurturing goddess Hathor, who is syncretized with the primeval lioness-goddess Tefnut. This example displays a rounded feline face with a short muzzle; the whiskers are indicated by thick, curving engravings. Her eyes are set deep within the face, with highly placed lids. The eyes may have originally been inlaid, as on 1943.1121.A, but the inlay has been lost. Her legs display a thin, flat profile with a sharply angled bend at the knees that differs from the rounded execution of the male deity’s legs. She holds her proper right hand open and palm down above her knee; her left hand, attached to the leg by a small strut, retains its clenched fist which probably originally held a separately worked scepter.
Wadjet sits on a richly decorated throne. A hieroglyphic inscription, which begins on the proper right side of the throne with the sign for Horus (a falcon) and continues in the upper left corner on the back, reads “Horus, the great god, Beḥdetite” (1). As the Beḥdetite, Horus is represented in the form of a hovering falcon or winged solar disc who protects the individual king and is closely related to the renewal of kingship (2). The inscription naming the goddess Wadjet appears in the upper right hand corner of the proper left side of the throne. The back panel is divided into two rectangular zones. The upper zone, which occupies the slightly protruding ledge of the throne back, depicts the Horus-falcon with outstretched wings. It grasps the shen rings of eternity and feathers of maat (cosmic order) in its claws and wears a sun disc as a headdress. Below this scene, a lion-headed figure, perhaps male, wearing a large disc on its head is shown kneeling in profile to the right. Extending both arms, it holds the sides of an enclosing arch and appears to balance upon a diamond-shaped element, which may be the central element of the heb “festival” basket glyph. The arch, which is rendered by a single line with a parallel row of stippled dots along the outside, may be an abstraction of two notched palm branches, symbols of one hundred thousand years of reign. The two throne sides show similar imagery: that on the proper right depicts a lion-headed figure wearing the Double Crown, while on the left side a lion-headed figure carries a large disc on its head. In both, the figure squats on an open lotus flower from which seven smaller tendrils extend. The entire scene surmounts a geometric design representative of the niches and buttresses of palace facades.
The two magnificent statues of enthroned lion-headed deities represent Late Period Egyptian bronze working at its finest. They may belong to Dynasty 26 (c. 664-525 BCE) based on comparisons with dated examples (3). The two figures depict a female deity (1943.1121.B) and a more rarely found male deity (1943.1121.A); they do not, however, constitute a matched pair, as the workmanship and stylistic features distinguish them as products of different artists. A study of similar bronzes in the Berlin museum revealed that they were often used as containers for sacrificed ichneumons, although the Harvard examples are empty (4). The ichneumon, as the hunter of dangerous serpents with which the lioness goddesses are connected, transforms the potentially destructive nature of the divinity into a tamed protector.
The lion (or more accurately lioness) head is the most common animal head for female deities and it is associated with several different ones. In the absence of an inscription, it can be difficult to determine which goddess is represented. In the New Kingdom, one goddess who was represented in large stone sculptures of lion-headed goddesses was Sakhmet, whose name literally means “She who is Powerful.” Similarly forceful goddesses assume the leonine attributes, including Matit (“She who Dismembers”), Mehit (“She who Seizes”), and Pakhet (“She who Scratches”) (5). Inscriptions on Late Period lion-headed bronzes most commonly name the goddess Wadjet, associated with the Delta site of Buto, as is the case with 1943.1121.B. As the regional goddess of Lower Egypt, she appears in the form of a fire-spiting serpent and was paired with Nekhbet, the vulture-goddess of Upper Egypt. Together they appear as protomes on royal headdresses, Wadjet taking the form of the cobra-head (known to us through the Greek name, uraeus). Wadjet also encompasses a solar aspect and, along with Sakhmet, is equated with the fiery eye of Re, hence the common occurrence of the solar disc in the iconography of lion goddesses. There is also evidence that the destructive qualities of these goddesses were softened by their syncretism with more benign goddesses such as Bastet, Hathor, and Mut. A bronze seated lion-headed goddess in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, that is quite close iconographically to 1943.1121.B, is inscribed with a prayer to Mut (6).
Most feline deities are female, and the depiction of lion-headed male deities is unusual. The identification of 1943.1121.A as male is based on the fact that the deity wears a short kilt instead of the tight-fitting long dress (7). The leonine heads are not differentiated between the male and female, since both have a slightly flaring mane that surrounds the face and a long tripartite wig, which conceals the junction between animal and human forms. Inscribed examples of male lion-headed deity statuettes are much less common than inscribed female examples; Roeder notes one example with a prayer to Horus, Son of Wadjet in Berlin (8). A second piece inscribed with epithets of Horus is in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (9). Such inscriptions, however, may also be associated with Wadjet, as is the case for Harvard’s female deity 1943.1121.B. In addition, the lion-headed gods can be connected with Shu, the son of the creator-god Atum and brother of Tefnut. The brother-sister couple, who began the sexual cycle of reproduction through their mating, were identified with the lion and worshipped at Leontopolis (Tell Muqdam in the Delta). Also worshipped in leonine form at Leontopolis was Mahes (Greek: Miysis or Mios), a war god and guardian of sacred places (10). A Greek commentary mentions sacred enclosures and catacombs for mummified lions at this site, but no archaeological finds have confirmed this practice (11).
NOTES:
1. Inscription translated by the late C. Keller, formerly Professor of Egyptology, University of California, Berkeley.
2. Thanks are due to E. Russo, Brown University, for clarification of this aspect of Horus.
3. See, for example, B. V. Bothmer, “Statuettes of W3d.t as Ichneumon Coffins,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 8 (1949): 121-23, esp. 121 n.2 (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv. no. 11867, excavated at Sais in the Delta).
4. Ibid.
5. A. K. Capel and G. E. Markoe, Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt, exh. cat., Cincinnati Art Museum; Brooklyn Museum (New York, 1996) no. 67.
6. M. Saleh, The Egyptian Museum Cairo: Official Catalogue (Mainz, 1987) no. 254, thought to come from Sais.
7. For comparable male deities, see G. Roeder, Ägyptische Bronzefiguren, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Mitteilungen aus der Ägyptischen Sammlung 6 (Berlin, 1956) 66-68, pls. 11.1 and 12.a-b, .d-e) (Berlin inv. nos. 13131 and 13788).
8. Ibid., 68 (Berlin inv. no. 13788).
9. Although with an elaborate hmhm headdress consisting of three papyriform columns, maat feathers, uraei, and sun discs; see A Glimpse into the Past: The Joseph Ternbach Collections, exh. cat., The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1981) 154-55, no. 120.
10. “Miysis,” in Lexicon der Ägyptologie, Pt. 26, vol. 4, pt. 2 (Wiesbaden, 1980) 163-64.
11. P. F. Houlihan, The Animal World of the Pharaohs (London, 1996) 95.
Marian Feldman
