Pendant of an ibis wearing an atef crown

Pendant of an ibis wearing an atef crown

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The ibis was sacred to the scribal god Thoth, a deity also closely associated with the moon.This striding bird wears an atef crown, often seen worn by the funerary god Osiris, topped by the sun disk of the solar deity Re. Along with the cat, falcon, and Apis bull, the ibis was one of the sacred animals most frequently represented in statuettes of copper alloy during the first millennium B.C. The popularity of the ibis cult is attested by the thousands of mummies of this bird found in animal catacombs throughout Egypt. Figures such as this one have been found alongside the mummies in the catacombs, as well as in caches related to temples and shrines. The loop on the back suggests that it was meant to be carried or suspended.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pendant of an ibis wearing an atef crownPendant of an ibis wearing an atef crownPendant of an ibis wearing an atef crownPendant of an ibis wearing an atef crownPendant of an ibis wearing an atef crown

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.