Bell with heads of a ram, a jackal, and a bovine wearing a yoke ending in uraei

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bells began to appear in Egypt about the 8th century BC. This elaborate bell is decorated with heads of animals: a bovine wearing a yoke ending in uraei, a ram, a jackal, and a snake. The clapper is missing. Similarly shaped bells with heads of mythological animals were found in the cemetery at Naukratis, where they must have had some kind of amuletic function for 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