Ram with lotus-shaped manger

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This charming ram, with its almost prehensile muzzle, feeds from a lotus-form trough. The traditional Egyptian gods Amun or Khnum were identified with curly-horned rams, but by this time several other divinities were as well. In terracotta statuettes and on coins Harpokrates can be seen riding a ram or sitting upon a lotus flower, the latter symbolic of rebirth. Perhaps this faience composition alludes to Harpokrates, who was an immensely popular god of fecundity and rebirth during the Roman era. With the masks 26.7.1020-.1021, the ram is said to have been part of a find of numerous faience objects at Arsinoe, capital of the Fayum region.

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