Ptah-Sokar-Osiris Figure of Pakherenkhonsu

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This mummiform statuette is inscribed for "The Osiris (the transformed deceased) of the Doorkeeper of the House of Amun, Pakerenkhonsu, true of voice." Known as a Ptah-Sokar-Osiris figure, it represents a merging of three gods: Ptah, a creator god and patron of craftsmen; Sokar, a hawk-headed deity conected with the Memphite necropolis; and Osiris, the ruler of the underworld. Other examples of such figures were hollow, and contained rolled up funerary papyri. This one is solid, as is the rectangular base on which it sits, likely because it dates from a period when papyri were not usually included with burials at Thebes. The figure is adorned with two ostrich plumes flanking a sun-disk that connects it to the solar cycle. The face is green, a color associated with fertility and new growth. Both the connection with the daily rising and setting of the sun and the link with the yearly agricultural cycle helped to ensure the perpetual rebirth of the deceased.

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