Lotiform Chalice

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fragrant blossom of the blue lotus is a common motif in all forms of Egyptian art. Because it opened its petals to the sun each morning, the flower became a symbol of creation and rebirth. During the Third Intermediate Period, faience chalices derived from the shape of the blossom and other faience delicacies were decorated with relief scenes evoking a constellation of myths having to do with the birth of the king as child of the sun god out of the watery marsh environment, and thus the renewal of the world out of the flooded land anticipated with the beginning of the Inundation at the Egyptian New Year. Here, against a background of water filled with fish, papyrus clumps and water reeds, the marshes are evoked as a magical environment: the central register shows a man with a calf or cow over his shoulders, a huge water bird, and a horned animal all riding along in a light papyrus skiff without tipping in the least, while in the top register another man separates a horned animal and a huge bull with his bare hands.

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