A few notes on the aegis
Feb. 22nd, 2018 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ikhet_sekhmetThe aegis depicts a deity's head above "a broad wsḫ-collar". "...aegides are connected with the cults of Amun, Mut, Khons, Hathor, Isis, Sekhmet, Bastet, Anukis, Sobek, and other gods". They appear just as the collar, as the collar with a menat attached, and as collar plus menat plus the god's hands. They had multiple functions: "sacred barques, dance accessories, heads of ritual staffs and divine standards, cult images, amulets, and votive offerings".
The first representations of aegides (on the prow and stern of Amun's sacred barque) are found in Hatshepsut's Red Chapel in Karnak, but an earlier fragment suggests Amun's barque already bore his aegis in the Middle Kingdom. The barques of Mut and Khonsu had their own aegides. In Hatshepsut's time, a real wsḫ-collar decorated Amun's head. Barques were the first use of the aegis; it began to appear attached to the menat in Hathor's cult during the Eighteenth Dynasty. The version with the god's arms has a "special status" in the Third Intermediate Period.
As amulets of Sekhmet, Mut, Hathor, Isis, and Amun, aegides were used in jewellery, and were found outside Egypt in Palestine, Samos, Cyprus, and Meroe.
"We really know nothing of the ritual in which aegides were used or their role in the cults of Egyptian gods." Egad.
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Ivanov, Sergei. "The Aegis in Ancient Egyptian Art: Aspects of Interpretation". In Zahi Hawass (ed). Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century: proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists, Cairo, 2000. Cairo ; New York: American University in Cairo Press, 2003.
The first representations of aegides (on the prow and stern of Amun's sacred barque) are found in Hatshepsut's Red Chapel in Karnak, but an earlier fragment suggests Amun's barque already bore his aegis in the Middle Kingdom. The barques of Mut and Khonsu had their own aegides. In Hatshepsut's time, a real wsḫ-collar decorated Amun's head. Barques were the first use of the aegis; it began to appear attached to the menat in Hathor's cult during the Eighteenth Dynasty. The version with the god's arms has a "special status" in the Third Intermediate Period.
As amulets of Sekhmet, Mut, Hathor, Isis, and Amun, aegides were used in jewellery, and were found outside Egypt in Palestine, Samos, Cyprus, and Meroe.
"We really know nothing of the ritual in which aegides were used or their role in the cults of Egyptian gods." Egad.
__
Ivanov, Sergei. "The Aegis in Ancient Egyptian Art: Aspects of Interpretation". In Zahi Hawass (ed). Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century: proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists, Cairo, 2000. Cairo ; New York: American University in Cairo Press, 2003.
