Statuette of Isis and Horus

Thirtieth Dynasty-Early Ptolemaic Period, ca. 380-200 B.C. Faience. Gift in memory of Dr. Charles Shute. 2000.4

This exquisitely detailed statuette shows the goddess Isis nursing her son, Horus. Isis and Horus were frequently depicted in this pose in the form of amulets, or charms. Amulets were worn as personal ornaments and protected the wearer or endowed them with certain qualities. Amulets of Isis, particularly when accompanied by her child, Horus, were favored by women, to provide protection during pregnancy and childbirth.

Egypt. Twenty-first Dynasty, ca. 1070-946 B.C. Painted wood, linen, and human remains. 1999.1.17a-d

This coffin is the most beautiful in the Niagara Collection and one of the finest to be found anywhere in the world. This exquisite coffin belonged to the Lady Tahat, a chantress in the temple of the god Amun at Karnak. Such women were usually of high rank, as this unusually fine coffin indicates. Women served in temples not as priests, but as chantresses, or singers, who presumably played instruments and recited hymns to the gods. On the coffin lid, the lady Tahat is bedecked in a full wig surrounded by protective gods and symbols and adorned with her finest jewelry. The breathtakingly lovely scenes delicately painted on the sides of the coffin depicted mythological scenes and Tahat being judged in the underworld and being reborn into eternal life. Over the mummy was placed a coffin board, that looked like and served as a secondary lid with more decorative elements to protect the mummy.

Egypt. Early Third Intermediate Period, ca. 1070-712 B.C. Painted wood. 1999.1.145

Coffins of the Third Intermediate Period were made out of local soft wood with finer grained, imported wood reserved for carved faces that would be pegged onto the lid of the coffin. The face often survives when the rest of the coffin decays.

Statue of a Kneeling Official

Late Period, Twenty-sixth Dynasty, ca. 664-525 B.C. Basalt. Gift of the Connoisseurs, 1988.4.1

This statue, now missing its head, shows a kneeling official offering a shrine containing the emblem of the goddess Hathor. The virtuoso working of the hard stone is typical of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. The smooth, polished, rounded forms give the end product a plasticity and softness that belie the hard nature of the material. Like most Late Period statues, the piece was placed in a temple so as to associate the donor in perpetuity with the cult performed there.

The figure exhibits the frontality typical of formal ancient Egyptian statues. This goes back to the earliest times and probably derives from the function and context of cult statues.

Late Period, ca. 712-332 B.C. Bronze, Lapis Lazuli, Red Glass. Gift of the Connoisseurs, 1987.1

From the Late Period on, it became common to dedicate appropriate bronze images in the temples and shrines of deities. Many such statues take the form of deities themselves, while others represent animals sacred to different deities. The oxyrhynchus fish (an African freshwater fish; the name means "sharp nosed" in Greek) was sacred to the goddess Hathor, and is usually shown wearing her crown of cow's horns and sun disk on its head, an image that may have reproduced an actual temple cult statue. Sometimes, as here, a kneeling figure of the donor was included.

This rectangular coffin was put together from local timber for a priestess of the goddess Hathor called Nebetit. The head end is identified by a pair of stylized eyes, known as wedjat eyes, painted in a panel on the side. The coffin would have been oriented in the tomb with the head end pointing north. This would have enabled the deceased, lying on her side, magically to look out through the wedjat eyes at the sun rising on the eastern horizon-a symbol of rebirth

Shawabti of Neferibresaneith, Son of Shepenbastet

Twenty-sixth Dynasty, c. 664-525 B.C. Faience. Gift of the Atlantes Society by exchange. 1998.11

The Valley of the Kings, Thebes, Egypt. Twentieth Dynasty, ca. 1185-1070 B.C.

Akhenaton

The heretic king in worship to Aton, the sun god

Model Potter

Painted limestone

13.2 x 12.5 x 6.7 cm.

Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago 10628.

5th dynasty (c. 2500-2350 BC)

Tutankhamun

An offering, Maat

Karnak

Temple of Hatshepsut

Luxor

Temple of Osiris

All photographs are copyrighted 1992, by Steven Beikirch