Oriental Institute Museum visit

[ikhet_sekhmet]

We're home from three weeks in the US, during which I managed to wrangle a few hours at the Oriental Institute's museum in Chicago. It's deceptive - it seems small, just a few rooms on one floor of the building, but it's just crammed with goodies. The current exhibit on birds in Ancient Egypt includes a spectacular ibis mummy case and the unwrapped remains of a mummified eagle, some of the gilding still present on the blackened body. The inevitable Sekhmet (OIM 1339) is a gorgeous pink-grey bust, without rosettes on the dress and part of the throne attached to the back. Her gaze is as weighty as it always is, her expression as peaceful as Durga slaying her enemies with ease. There is also a colossal statue of Tutankhamun, beautiful lions from the Ishtar Gate, and an immense lammasu - I walked into the room facing away from it, turned round, and nearly had a heart attack.

Among several other items which caught my eye was a Nineteenth Dynasty stela (OIM 1567) from the Ramesseum, showing the owner worshipping Sobek-Re and an enthroned lion-headed god. The hieroglyphs were too eensy and shallow for me to make out, but the label gave the dedicator's name as Nebaa and the god's name as Iwnet. This sent me on a wild Google chase until I tracked down the puzzling object in a thesis - turns out the owner was one Nebwa, Scribe of the Army of the Lord of the Two Lands, and the lion-headed figure is not a god called Iwnet (Dendera!), but the goddess Wenut. So that's that cleared up.

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Exell, Karen (2006) A social and historical interpretation of Ramesside period votive stelae, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2631/
Quibell, J.E. The Ramesseum. B. Quaritch, London, 1898.

Comments

[lemon-cupcake.livejournal.com]

Wenut's clearly feminine here, as one can see from the breast, but also the lotus scepter, instead of the uas, and because the head is recognizable as a lioness, to my eye at least, though admittedly I can't point to any single feature that makes it so. Seeing any male lion heads much north of Nubia is incredibly rare, of course, so one tends to rule it out a priori. Apedemak has a fringe of mane, though, and a shorter snout, bigger eyes, etc. Leaving out the -t's at the end of feminine words is very common on monuments. Since Wenut's name is determined by a seated Goddess, there's no ambiguity. Now as for the pairing of Wenut and Sobek, that merits some pondering. Since she has a lion head, she's implicitly in the Eye of Re capacity. Perhaps Nebwa is fond of her because he's a scribe? Then the question would be why Sobek in particular. But then sometimes it's really just a question of the peculiarities of personal devotion.