Signet ring

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The ring bezel is decorated with the royal device of two cartouches topped by ostrich plumes. The cartouches frame dancing figures of Bes, a minor god who frightened away demons and killed snakes and other harmful animals. Bes was closely associated with women in labor and with small children, and use of his image on this ring suggests that it belonged to a queen.

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