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Many votive objects – those dedicated to deities at temples and shrines – are versions of ritual items made in more durable materials. This object is in the distinctive shape of a counterpoise known as a menat: as the counterbalance to a necklace of several strings of faience beads, it would hang down the back of the wearer. But things are rarely purely practical in pharaonic material culture. The menat was itself invested with rich symbolism and meaning, being associated with a range of goddesses.
The fact that this example is made of faience and finely decorated makes it unlikely that it was worn as a piece of jewellery. Female temple staff would shake the beads of their menat-necklaces as part of rituals. This sound would invoke and placate the goddess – Hathor or Bastet being the most common of a spectrum of female (and frequently feline) divinities.
The reverse side carries a hieroglyphic text naming ‘The Perfect God, Lord of the Two Lands, King of Upper and Lower Egypt Khu-nefertem-ra, Son of Ra, Taharqa, beloved of Bastet’. Taharqa was a Kushite ruler of Egypt (c.690-664 BC). In the main scene, Taharqa is shown as a child being suckled by the lioness-headed goddess Bastet; her name, in an archaic spelling, appears above their heads.
Bastet could also be shown as a cat or cat-headed woman during this period, but a deliberately old-fashioned intention seems clear in the design here – recalling royal relief images already almost 2,000 years old. Similarly archaising is the depiction of the vulture goddess Nekhbet and the serpent Wadjet at the bottom. These patron deities of Upper and Lower Egypt respectively flank the raptor-avatar of the pharaoh, the Horus-falcon. It is easy to imagine the design having been copied from standing Old Kingdom monuments, harnessing the power of antiquity to charge the votive gift.
Image: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
