Egyptian obelisk with Bastet, Late Dynastic Period, 26th Dynasty, c.664-525 BC
Bronze
Height: 27cm
10620
Further images
This sculptural group shows the cat-headed goddess standing with her back against a hollow obelisk, carrying a sistrum in her right hand and an aegis of the lion goddess Sekhmet...
This sculptural group shows the cat-headed goddess standing with her back against a hollow obelisk, carrying a sistrum in her right hand and an aegis of the lion goddess Sekhmet wearing a sundisk with ureaus in her left, referencing the more ferocious nature of cat-headed deities. Bastet wears an ankle-length, close-fitting dress with short sleeves 'v' neck finely decorated with incised panels of chevrons and squared saltires. The integrally-cast square base she stands upon is attached to a rectangular plinth which juts out from the obelisk, the hieroglyphs read 'may Bastet give life [to] Hap-men, son of Ipi, born to Her-Bastet'. Four corrosion holes to the obelisk and some other minor pitting.
Provenance
Ernest Ohly, London, UK; acquired at Glendining & Co.,
London, UK, June 1969
Private collection, Rome, Italy; acquired London, UK, 2007
Literature
Compare Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte, Tome XLIII (Cairo, 1943), pp.46-56. For the figure alone see Gunther Roder, Ägyptisch Bronzewerken (Berlin, 1956), Tafel 39/l
