Egyptian Faience Mayhes Amulet

LATE PERIOD, 664-332 B.C.

3 1/4 in. (50.8 grams total, 84 mm including stand).

Standing erect with dorsal pillar and rectangular base, arms straight and one leg advancing; lion-head wearing atef crown and a uraeus; mounted on a custom-made stand.

Provenance

Ex early 20th century London, UK, collection.

Literature

Cf. Daressy, G., Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire N° 38001-39384 Statues de divinités, Cairo, 1906, p. 151 (inv. no. 38579), pl. XXXII, for a similar example from Abydos.

Footnotes

Mahes was an Egyptian lion-headed deity linked to divine protection, royal authority, and retributive justice. Considered a son of the goddess Bastet—or, in some traditions, Sekhmet—he embodied the fierce, solar power of the sun god Re and served as a fierce protector of cosmic order. Mahes was especially venerated in the Delta region, notably at Leontopolis, where his leonine form highlighted his role as a guardian and destroyer of enemies. Iconographically, he is commonly depicted as a lion or, as here, a man with a lion’s head, wearing an atef- crown.

CONDITION

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LOT 0053