Images

Priests used bowls like this in temples for liquid offerings to the gods. Two faces of the goddess Hathor adorn the rim. Flat depictions of persons were usually in profile, but Hathor's face was widely displayed in frontal view. In such images...

The statue shows the king offering pots of water or wine. Based on parallel statues, large parts have been restored in modern times, including the hands, posts, and knees. Cartouches enclosing Ramesses' birth and throne names appear on his...

The enthroned pharaoh has idealized features and wears a striped head-cloth, false beard, and pleated kilt. A bull's tail, symbol of superhuman strength, hangs between the legs. Many Egyptian kings used the title of "bull" or "strong bull"...

Detail of the upper margin of the sarcophagus of the last native Egyptian pharaoh Nectanebo II showing the so-called "djed" and tyet" symbols. The djed, a pillar-like symbol, represents the backbone (spine) of Osiris, the god of the underworld...

When complete, this scene showed Osorkon offering a clepsydra (water clock) to the snake goddess Wadjyt. The King wears the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. Osorkon's wife, queen Karoma, stands by his side. She wears a plumed crown...

A pharaoh was known primarily by his throne name. This was traditionally a statement about his divine father, the sun-god Ra, so all cartouches with throne names display a sun-god at the top. A king's birth name was the only name he had already...

Statue of Tutankhamun, from the temple of Amun-Ra at Thebes, Karnak, Egypt, 18th Dynasty, c. 1336-1327 BCE. The king presents an abundance of offerings, including lotus blossoms, bunches of grapes, pomegranates, and ducks hung by their feet...

Statue of Amenhotep III, declares the king's might by representing him as a lion, from Napata (Gebel Barkal, Sudan), originally from Soleb (Sudan), 18th Dynasty, reign of Amenhotep III, 1390-1352 BCE. Pharaohs were often shown as a sphinx...

This head was part of a statue which was placed in a temple. No inscription survives to identify the king, but stylistic details point to Nectanebo I or II, the principal kings of Egypt's last native Dynasty. The king's nose and protective...

Unfinished limestone sculpture of Horemheb and his wife from the tomb of Horemheb at Saqqara, Egypt, 18th Dynasty, probably the reign of Ay, c. 1327-1323 BCE. The sculpture bears no inscription, and when it was acquired by the British Museum...