Head of a Canid, possibly a Jackal

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The classification of wild canids, for instance, the Egyptian jackal, Canis lupaster, and the wild dog living at the margins of the Egyptian desert, causes problems even for zoologists. It is not surprising, therefore, that the ancient Egyptians did not distinguish particular canid species in their representations of gods, such as the necropolis god Anubis; Duamutef, one of the four sons of Horus; or Wepwawet, the god of Asyut, a town in Middle Egypt. This sensitively modeled plaster head could have served to depict any of these deities. The use of plaster and the rough, unmodeled area around the ears indicate that the head was cast in a mold. Recent research has shown that Egyptian artists used a variety of finely graded plaster materials for trial pieces and finished works of art.This small head is in a class with Old Kingdom "reserve" heads and the famous New Kingdom plaster portraits from an artist's studio at Amarna. In the latter workshop, mold casting was also practiced.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art