Scaraboid with an image of Hathor

Unknown

ca. 1550–1295 B.C. · Faience · Egyptian Art

This goddess face is flanked by the uraei that often accompany Hathor. Loop elements rise above the podium crown. These have sometimes been interpreted as a row of uraei, and by the later eighteenth dynasty this may be the case. However, the modius with uraei appears on queens’ crowns only in the time of Amenhotep III, so early loop crowns probably represent something else, possibly feathers like those worn on crowns by Bes and Anukis. The opposite is flat and bears an image of the protective goddess Taweret with a knife(?) to fight fiends and the hieroglyph for protection.

Artist

Unknown

Date

ca. 1550–1295 B.C.

Medium

Faience

Department

Egyptian Art

Credit line

Gift of Helen Miller Gould, 1910