Antiquities Exhibits

Zeus was identified with the Roman god Jupiter and associated in the syncretic classical imagination with various other deities, such as the Etruscan Tinia and the Egyptian Amun (Ammon). He, along with Dionysus, absorbed the role of the chief Phrygian god Sabazios as well in the syncretic deity known in Rome as Sabazius. Ammon was origiinally a Libyan deity.  His oracle, situated in the Siwa oasis, 500 kilometers west of Memphis became known by the Egyptians as "Amun of Siwa, lord of good counsel." Siwa is believed to have been occupied as early as Paleolithic and Neolithic times, and some believe at one time it was the capital of an ancient kingdom that may have included Qara, Arashieh and Bahrein.  According to one myth the temple at Siwa was founded by the Greek god Dionysus. While lost in the Western Desert, Dionysus was perishing of thirst when a man appeared and guided him to the spring at Aghurmi. In gratitude, Dionysus erected the temple. In other myths, the Oracle of...

"Beginning with Ptolemy I Soter, the Ptolemaic dynasty reigned from 305 BCE to 30 BCE, when the last Ptolemaic ruler, Kleopatra VII, committed suicide, and Octavian made Egypt a province of Rome. In their capital at Alexandria and in historically prominent Egyptian cities and sanctuaries, the Ptolemies continued the practices of their pharaonic predecessors in an attempt to integrate themselves into Egyptian society and their images into Egypt’s visual culture," explains Yale University's Susan B. Matheson. "They employed architecture and sculpture to help establish their rightful place as rulers and to present themselves as a dynasty like those that came before. This impressive display of public art featured primarily Egyptian iconography and style. Egyptian dress and traditional royal and divine attributes were typical, and inscriptions were generally in the native hieroglyphic script." Matheson points out that Ptolemaic dynastic portraits ranged from those ap...

The iconography and style of depictions of Horus and other traditional Egyptian deities were influenced by Hellenistic and, later, Roman traditions of representation, often combining trappings of power in ways that are striking to modern observers. "Roman period depictions of  the falcon-headed Horus have been  found  in  a  variety  of   materials  throughout  the  empire,  from  Egypt  to  Oxfordshire.  Usually  dressed  in  Roman  military costume, falcon-headed Horus is sometimes depicted on horseback, but more often standing, while seated figures are rare. Although smaller figures may have been dedicatory, larger stone and metal sculptures were probably objects of  public or private devotion." - Polychromy in Roman Egypt: A study of a limestone sculpture of the Egyptian god Horus by Joanne Dyer, Elisabeth R. O"Connell, and Antony Simpson. Sir Harold Bell observes, "...a new reli...

When I saw this carefully detailed bronze sculpture of a common shrew from Egypt's Greco-Roman Period, I wondered why the ancients thought this creature worthy of such expense. Although this sculpture is part of the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art also has a similar, though less detailed example from the same period as does the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.   According to The Met, the ancient Egyptians named the shrew, "the voracious", because of its feeding habits. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the shrew represented the blind aspect of the solar deity, “the one with no eyes in his face” (Mechenti-n-irti in old Egyptian) that was complemented by the ichneumon, “the one whose eyes (the Sun and the Moon) are in his face” (Mechenti-irti in old Egyptian), a creature with very keen eyesight. This god with the dual nature was revered in Letopolis as one of the aspects of Horus, who, as myth has it, was blind at birth.  According to...

Napata was founded by Thutmose III in the 15th century BCE after his conquest of Kush. Napata’s location as the southernmost point in the empire led it to become an important religious center and settlement. In 750 BCE, during the political instability of the Third Intermediate Period, the Kushite ruler, Kashta, attacked Upper Egypt. His policy was pursued by his successors Piye, and Shabaka (721–707 BCE), who eventually brought the whole Nile Valley under Kushite control and ruled Egypt as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. Religion, the arts, and architecture were restored to their Old, Middle, and New Kingdom forms under such pharaohs as Taharqa who built or restored temples and monuments throughout the Nile, including at Memphis, Karnak, Kawa, Jebel Barkal, and elsewhere. However the dynasty was relatively brief. Taharqa and his successor cousin, Tantamani were constantly in conflict with the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Neo-Assyrian emperor Esarhaddon conquered Lower Egypt about 670 BCE then enlis...