LOT 0074

Egyptian Terracotta Bes Vessel

GRAECO-ROMAN PERIOD, 332 B.C.-323 A.D.

2 1/2 in. (140 grams, 68 mm).

Bulbous in profile, with a short, broad neck, a rolled rim, and an angled handle; obverse with a moulded mask of Bes, with lentoid eyes and a hatched face.

From the private collection of Peter Clayton, FCILIP, Dip, Arch, FSA, FRNS, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, UK; formed since the late 1950s.

Cf. Kaiser, K.R., Water, Milk, Beer and Wine for the Living and the Dead: Egyptian and Syro-Palestinian Bes-Vessels from the New Kingdom through the Graeco-Roman Period, PhD thesis, Berkley, California, 2003, p.464, cat. No. 337 (Bolton Museum inv. no. A.16.1968), for a close parallel of the type.

Bes, a dwarf deity primarily of the household, was a powerful apotropaic entity who warded off evil spirits, guarded homes, and protected vulnerable family members, especially pregnant women and infants.
Bes vessels were thought to imbue their contents with healing properties. Chemical analysis of some Graeco-Roman Bes vessels shows they held hallucinogenic, medicinal, and alcoholic blends explicitly tied to pregnancy rituals and ritual intoxication.
During the Graeco-Roman period, mould-made figure vessels and terracotta figurines became very common. By contrast, earlier eras produced almost none of these vessels; only one ceramic example is known from the New Kingdom, and none from the Third Intermediate or Late periods.
These mass-produced terracottas allowed non-elites to venerate cult images at home altars or leave them as accessible votive offerings at local sanctuaries.