PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, 332-30 B.C.

R.H. Wilkinson writes, "The god Hapy was primarily identified by the Egyptians as the inundation of the Nile--its yearly flooding which brought fertility to the land through widespread watering and the new silt spread over the fields by the swollen river" (The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, p. 106). The present example depicts Hapy with a swollen, distended belly and pendant breasts, a symbol of the fertility associated with the Nile flooding.