Statuette representing Harpokrates

Statuette representing Harpokrates

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The child god represented here with finger to mouth is Harpokrates. who wears a small Egyptian double crown. This Greco-Roman form of the god also wears a cloak attached to one shoulder, and holds a cornucopia. He leans on a tree trunk and has one foot on a small clump of land. The cornucopia has been noted to be particularly associated with gods connected to the Eleusinian mysteries, and here to mark a convergence of Egyptian myth and Eleusinian myth fostered by the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Statuette representing HarpokratesStatuette representing HarpokratesStatuette representing HarpokratesStatuette representing HarpokratesStatuette representing Harpokrates

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.