A hollow-cast leaded bronze votive statuette of an upright falcon embodying the god Horus, made in Egypt's Late Period, Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, mid 7th to late 6th century BC. The bird wears the double crown of unified Upper and Lower Egypt, a royal cobra (uraeus) at the brow, and an engraved collar amulet, its eyes rimmed in gold-alloy foil and its feathers rendered in fine, characteristically Egyptian detail. An opening beneath the tail, now sealed with bronze, allowed the small, hollow bones, probably of a real falcon, to be deposited inside: hundreds of thousands of such mummified falcons were dedicated in Egyptian temple catacombs as votive prayers to Horus, sky and solar god and the divine pattern for Egyptian kingship, whose falcon form and dual crown together signified rule over the whole of unified Egypt.
Facts
Subject Matter
Depicted SubjectHorus, the falcon-form sky and sun god of ancient Egypt, whose falcon form and double crown embodied divine kingship over unified Upper and Lower Egypt. 2 Devotional FunctionA votive offering: small mummified falcon bones were deposited inside the hollow bronze as a dedication to Horus, one of hundreds of thousands of such offerings buried in Egyptian temple animal catacombs. 1 Physical Form
MediumLeaded bronze with gold-alloy inlay 1 Dimensions37.5 x 9.5 x 24.1 cm (14 3/4 x 3 3/4 x 9 1/2 in.) 1 Custody
Current LocationHarvard Art Museums, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts (object 1943.1118) 1 Current Custodian Custody HistoryEddé collection, Alexandria, Egypt; sold via J. Hirsch (Ars Classica, Geneva, 1928) to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York; bequeathed to the Fogg Art Museum in 1943. 1 Origins
Date of CreationMid 7th to late 6th century BC, Late Period, Dynasty 26 1 Rights and Reproduction
Reproduction and CopyrightThe statuette itself is centuries past any copyright term, but a specific modern photograph of it carries its own separate copyright. This atlas describes and cites the work rather than reproducing an image of it. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Horus, Figures This source names Horus directly: "of an upright falcon embodying the god Horus, made in Egypt's Late Period, Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, mid 7th to late 6th century BC."
Depicts
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.