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Despite its relatively diminutive stature (height: 17cm/6.7in), this small figurine lands quite a metaphysical punch. Adopting a hybrid form – an outward sign of preternatural power – this being is a human dwarf with the mane, ears, and tail of a lion. Although this iconography is later associated with the dwarf deity Bes, in the later Middle Kingdom (c.1800 BC), when this object was crafted, the entity was referred to only as ‘Aha’, ‘the fighter’. The wrath of the fighter could be defensively directed against (often unseen) enemies, implying an apotropaic function.
The piece is made of a bright blue ceramic called faience, created by mixing clay with sand and a copper compound, heated at very high temperatures to exude the coloured glaze. The choice of faience – known anciently as tjehenet (‘dazzling’) – was a deliberate means of enhancing the figurine’s capacity for metaphysical power: the glazed surface shone and sparkled in a way that appealed to both ancient eyes and fingers.
Details of the entity are picked out in darker lines. He holds two serpents, a motif adopted by similar images shown in two dimensions, and several other weird and wonderful creatures that also appear on the so-called ‘wands’ or ‘birth tusks’ (made of hippopotamus ivory), which are also from the end of the Middle Kingdom. These objects have a strongly protective purpose, and were a way of channelling heka (magic) in the defence of both the living and the dead. Intriguingly, where such objects have been found in closed contexts, they sometimes appear to have been deliberately damaged – as if to control or negate their power.
The precise archaeological context of this figurine is not known, coming as it does from the assembled holdings of prolific collector Reverend William MacGregor. However, a likely origin is the important late Middle Kingdom cemetery of Dra’ Abu el Naga, which implies a funerary deposition – although that does not exclude the possibility that the power of such an object was harnessed by living people prior to burial.
Image: acquired by Henry Walters, 1922
