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Lot Essay
PUBLISHED:
W. Froehner, Collection de la Comtesse R. de Béarn, Cahier 3, Paris, 1909, p. 61, no. 9, pl. XI.
This finely modelled and sizeable amulet depicts Shu supporting a solar disc between his upraised hands. Shu was the god of both air and sunlight. His name translates as ‘he who rises up’, and was commonly associated with aspects of the firmament such as mist and clouds. Over the course of the later Dynastic Period, the worship of Shu evolved to incorporate more cosmic components. His association with air expanded to the breath of life itself (R. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, London, 2003, p. 130). This led to a much wider proliferation of Shu in the prayers and texts of daily Egyptian religious practice.
The present amulet characteristically displays his arms raised outwards; a recurring motif for the deity. For example, some representations in relief show the god holding up his daughter Nut, goddess of the sky. On an ivory head-rest found in Tutankhamen’s tomb (now at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo), Shu kneels at the base, symbolically supporting the ‘sun’ or head of the pharaoh.
W. Froehner, Collection de la Comtesse R. de Béarn, Cahier 3, Paris, 1909, p. 61, no. 9, pl. XI.
This finely modelled and sizeable amulet depicts Shu supporting a solar disc between his upraised hands. Shu was the god of both air and sunlight. His name translates as ‘he who rises up’, and was commonly associated with aspects of the firmament such as mist and clouds. Over the course of the later Dynastic Period, the worship of Shu evolved to incorporate more cosmic components. His association with air expanded to the breath of life itself (R. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, London, 2003, p. 130). This led to a much wider proliferation of Shu in the prayers and texts of daily Egyptian religious practice.
The present amulet characteristically displays his arms raised outwards; a recurring motif for the deity. For example, some representations in relief show the god holding up his daughter Nut, goddess of the sky. On an ivory head-rest found in Tutankhamen’s tomb (now at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo), Shu kneels at the base, symbolically supporting the ‘sun’ or head of the pharaoh.