Magic Wand

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This curved object made from a hippopotamus tusk is incised with the figures of a frog, the goddess Taweret, a crocodile, a winged feline, the daimon Bes, a jackal head, an upright lion and a baboon. It belongs to a group of such objects, all of late Middle Kingdom date, which have a similar shape: curved with one end slightly rounded, the other flat. Based on the presence of the goddess Taweret, who was in charge of birth, and the daimon Bes, who was a protector of the newly born, as well as inscriptions on some of these objects mentioning children, the group is usually understood as having been associated with magical practices concerning the birth and early life of infants. The deposition of such objects in tombs could be explained by the idea that a deceased Egyptian wished for rebirth in the afterlife.

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