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Mistress of Tepnef
Sep. 30th, 2009 05:55 pmThere's an exhibition of Egyptian art on at the Australian Museum, including a terrific Sekhmet. (Every museum has one - they're like those bits of Ashurbanipal's palace that turn up everywhere.) After much squinting and trying to decipher the inscriptions, getting just a few words, I caved and looked them up: "The Son of Re, whom he loves, Amenhotep, Ruler of Thebes, beloved of Ptah, of Sakhmet, the Mistress of Tepnef, to whom is given life. The good god, the Lord of the Two Lands, Nebmaatre, beloved of Sakhmet, the Mistress of Tepnef, to whom is given life." But where the heck is Tepnef?
ETA: Also, this striking statuette of a lion-headed goddess enthroned in front of an obelisk. The exhibition's label noted that there wasn't any way to be sure which of several goddesses this represents, but the museum's Web site reckons it's probably Sekhmet. Close up you can see that the goddess was once holding a sceptre; I wonder if that's the basis of the tentative identification.
ETA: I think I know what the "Mistress of Tepnef" thing is all about. In The Great Goddesses of Egypt, Barbara Lesko notes that: "The goodwill of this fierce goddess was certainly desired, and inscriptions on the statues set up along the lakeshore at the Mut precinct suggest that they were donated from various parts of the country, as if an all-out national effort was being made to respond to a crisis". (p 140)
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Lesko, Barbara S. The Great Goddesses of Egypt. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1999.
ETA: Also, this striking statuette of a lion-headed goddess enthroned in front of an obelisk. The exhibition's label noted that there wasn't any way to be sure which of several goddesses this represents, but the museum's Web site reckons it's probably Sekhmet. Close up you can see that the goddess was once holding a sceptre; I wonder if that's the basis of the tentative identification.
ETA: I think I know what the "Mistress of Tepnef" thing is all about. In The Great Goddesses of Egypt, Barbara Lesko notes that: "The goodwill of this fierce goddess was certainly desired, and inscriptions on the statues set up along the lakeshore at the Mut precinct suggest that they were donated from various parts of the country, as if an all-out national effort was being made to respond to a crisis". (p 140)
__
Lesko, Barbara S. The Great Goddesses of Egypt. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1999.
