Large Limestone Fragment of a Hathor Capital with Cobra

Culture: Egyptian

Period: Ptolemaic period, 332-30 B.C.

Material: Limestone

Dimensions: 25 cm x 44 cm

Price: 28 000 Euro

Ref: 1530

Provenance: Gallery Sycomore, Paris, prior to 1989. Acquired by a private collection in Marseille in the same year. With the original certificate of gallery Sycomore of 5 June 1989. Accompanied by a French antiquities passport.

Condition: Unrestored with beautiful traces of color.

Description: Large limestone fragment, which once formed the upper end of a temple column. Depicted is the expressive face of goddess Hathor with large cow ears. Her left eye looks out from finely drawn lids, above a semi-circularly drawn brow. The goddess wears a massive wig with strands and traces of blue color, where the tapering and inside ribbed cow ears protrude. A cobra raises on the right side of Hathor. Its head vigilantly straight forward, the mouth is closed. The cobra, possibly a uraeus snake, wears a crown with traces of red color. Its body with a ribbed middle ridge is swelled. Hathor columns were erected especially in the Late period and had depictions on all fours sides. They refer to the understanding that Hathor was a cosmic and powerful goddess, whose face looks in all four corners of the earth. Hathor columns were especially popular in temples, which were associated with goddesses, or in mammisi temples (“birth places”), which were dedicated to the birth of a divine son of a goddess. See for the type the capital in the Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim with the inventory number 1885, in the Ägyptisches Museum in Berlin with the number ÄM 20351/02, as well as in the Metropolitan Museum with the Accession Number 28.9.7. Mounted.