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Material : Alabaster, Painting
Acquisition : Various donors (1997)
| Item 7 on 49
Ancient Egypt
Sculpture
Area related
Thèbes (Egypte)
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| Description |  |
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In the wild, these huge animals are powerful, aggresive, dangerous beasts who can overturn an unwary fisherman's boat or destroy a farmer's field in a single night. These characteristics led Egyptians to associate the hippo with Seth, the god of chaos. In Egyptian myth, Seth takes the form of a red hippo in order to fight the falcon-headed Horus in a battle won by Horus. The struggle symbolizes the victory of universal order over turmoil. The original statue to which this head belonged may have depicted Seth during this battle and was possibly ritually killed in temple ceremony.
Alternativaly, the white albaster may have been chosen becaise the animal was to symbolize the white hippopotamus, a more benign manifestation found in Egyptian mythology. Since a white animal represented an albino individual, a rarity in the natural world, such a discovery was an event to be celebrated.
Styliscally, the hippopotamus head appears to belong to the reign of Amanhotep III. It was part of a statue that may have been placed in the king's mortuary temple at Thebes on the occasion on his hed-sed festival, a ceremony where the king was rejuvenated symbolically.
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