Menat counterpoise with figures of Hathor as a woman and a cow

Menat counterpoise with figures of Hathor as a woman and a cow

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The menat is a ritual necklace, which consists of multiple strings of beads attached to a counterweight, also called a menat, shaped like a pendulum. The necklace could be worn by the goddess Hathor or by others associated with her, or her priestesses and eventually elite women could hold the counterweight in the hand to shake the beads to produce a rattling sound soothing to the goddess. The counterweight alone was a magical symbol of the goddess Hathor, and in the New Kingdom small menats were dedicated to the goddess by those visiting her sanctuaries. This fine openwork example includes three representations of the goddess, fully detailed on both sides: the goddess’s head at the top of the menat underscores the identity of the menat as a fetish of the goddess Hathor, a full anthropomorphic figure of the goddess appears inside the central frame, and a third figure of the goddess in her cow form moves through the papyrus marshes in a light reed boat. The features of the goddess head at the top allow it to be assigned to the reign of Amenhotep III. As a symbol of the goddess, the menat brought fertility, fostered the newly born and rebirth in the afterlife.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Menat counterpoise with figures of Hathor as a woman and a cowMenat counterpoise with figures of Hathor as a woman and a cowMenat counterpoise with figures of Hathor as a woman and a cowMenat counterpoise with figures of Hathor as a woman and a cowMenat counterpoise with figures of Hathor as a woman and a cow

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.