Origin: Egypt
Circa: 716 BC to 30 BC
Dimensions: 1.5" (3.8cm) high x 2" (5.1cm) wide
Collection: Egyptian antiquities
Style: Late Period
Medium: Faience
This important work depicts a blue faience figure of a four-headed ram (sacred to the god Khnum) standing astride a rectangular base. The animal is powerfully built and well-modelled throughout. These figures are comparatively well known in the Late Period: the extract presented below provides more detailed information. Condition is excellent. Reference:Antiquities from the Collection of Christos G. Bastis, catalogue of the exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1987, no. 26, illus.For a related example cf. Carol Andrews, Amulets of Ancient Egypt, London, 1994, p. 31, fig. 41f. See also Gifts of the Nile, no. 133, pp. 130and 232 (Béhague Collection, no. 88 ), about which the author notes, "it is difficult to identify which of the hypostases of the ram deity this image represents. It might be associated with the cult of the god known simply as the 'Ram of Mendes'... In the context of that cult, each head represents a specific ba, a complex concept that might be translated as a powered manifestation of a god or a natural force like the wind. At Mendes, in this particular instance, the hypostases of the Ram god included the Ba of Osiris (hereafter), the Ba of Geb (earth), the Ba of Shu (sky) and the Ba of Ra (life). Elsewhere the four-headed ram is associated with Osiris and Re as well as with other deities. Ba is also the name of the ram in ancient Egyptian, undoubtedly mimicking the animal's bleat."Provenance:Private Collection, New York. - (X.0735)

Antiquities
Ancient Egyptian