Day 36 - Statue of Sakhnet
March 23, 2018
Gallery 135, a large hall outside the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, is full of reproductions of wall paintings, largely from the area of Thebes and from the 1300-1000 B.C. period. They show scenes of everyday life (sowing wheat, gathering grapes and making wine, fishing), feasts and processions (inclusing nude or semi-nude dancing girls and musicians), animals, and geometric design elements (zigzags, rosettes, etc.). Before I came here today, I was sure I would write about one of these images.
Instead, though, I want to write about two large (maybe 8 feet high) and apparently identical brownish diorite statues of the goddess Sakhmet, dating from the reign of Amenhotep III (1390-1352 B.C.). Like isis in the statuette I wrote about in the last entry, Sakhmet sits enthroned. But what a different world-view she represents! She has the head of a lioness (lion?). Her ears protrude out from under a long wig; her whiskers are indicated by finger-like rectangles under her nose and her mane by ziggzag lines under her chin. From the neck down, her body is that of a woman, with breasts, hands (the left one holding an ankh), and bare feet. She wears a wide circular collar and a long skirt; her nipples are covered with rosettes (ancient pasties!). Above her head is a circle that represents her father, the sun god, Re.
According to the caption, Sakhnet was associated with the forces of violence, disaster, and illness. And she apparently had to be propitiated. Amenhotep III commissioned hundreds of these statues for his mortuary temple in Thebes. The caption describes the statues as "a monumental prayer to appease the goddess and thus guarantee peace and health."
This adds real complexity to my understanding of Egyptian culture (although I suppose that reading about all the rites and incantations described in the Book of the Dead should already have clued me in). It suggests that Egyptians were well aware of "the dark side" - the ever-present threats and dangers and bad things that happen to people. I think we have a similar awareness, but we tend to psychologize some of these forces, to explain violence as the reault of human tendencies and judgments, as well as to look at least in part for human explanations for natural disasters (e.g., global warming). The Egyptians, in contrast, largely located these negative forces outside of humans, in the gods and goddesses. And ritual was a way they could soothe the gods and avoid the disasters that would otherwise befall them.
What are the actions, ritual and otherwise, that we perform today to avoid disaster?
One thing I recently learned: There is no Gallery 136, or rather, it's a currently unused display space. So only two more Egyptian galleries to go!.
Instead, though, I want to write about two large (maybe 8 feet high) and apparently identical brownish diorite statues of the goddess Sakhmet, dating from the reign of Amenhotep III (1390-1352 B.C.). Like isis in the statuette I wrote about in the last entry, Sakhmet sits enthroned. But what a different world-view she represents! She has the head of a lioness (lion?). Her ears protrude out from under a long wig; her whiskers are indicated by finger-like rectangles under her nose and her mane by ziggzag lines under her chin. From the neck down, her body is that of a woman, with breasts, hands (the left one holding an ankh), and bare feet. She wears a wide circular collar and a long skirt; her nipples are covered with rosettes (ancient pasties!). Above her head is a circle that represents her father, the sun god, Re.
According to the caption, Sakhnet was associated with the forces of violence, disaster, and illness. And she apparently had to be propitiated. Amenhotep III commissioned hundreds of these statues for his mortuary temple in Thebes. The caption describes the statues as "a monumental prayer to appease the goddess and thus guarantee peace and health."
This adds real complexity to my understanding of Egyptian culture (although I suppose that reading about all the rites and incantations described in the Book of the Dead should already have clued me in). It suggests that Egyptians were well aware of "the dark side" - the ever-present threats and dangers and bad things that happen to people. I think we have a similar awareness, but we tend to psychologize some of these forces, to explain violence as the reault of human tendencies and judgments, as well as to look at least in part for human explanations for natural disasters (e.g., global warming). The Egyptians, in contrast, largely located these negative forces outside of humans, in the gods and goddesses. And ritual was a way they could soothe the gods and avoid the disasters that would otherwise befall them.
What are the actions, ritual and otherwise, that we perform today to avoid disaster?
One thing I recently learned: There is no Gallery 136, or rather, it's a currently unused display space. So only two more Egyptian galleries to go!.
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