A Royal Egyptian Steatite Scarab, 25th Dynasty, ca. 747 - 656 BCE Medium - Iron “Mistress of the House”

“Mistress of the House”

Provenance:  Private Dutch collection

Accounts make it clear that indigenous peoples practiced taking and displaying human heads as trophies

Medieval European tombs drew inspiration from earlier Roman and Etruscan sculptural traditions

A Royal Egyptian Steatite Scarab, 25th Dynasty, ca. 747 - 656 BCE Medium - Iron “Mistress of the House”carved from steatite, with naturalistically rendered legs, pierced horizontally for suspension. Functioning as an amulet, the base is finely inscribed Men Kheper Ra Khmeny. Men Kheper Ra Khmeny was a vassal king of the 25th Dynasty, and all evidence indicates that he ruled in Upper Egypt at Hermopolis. He appears with full royal titles on a plaque in the British Museum. For a related example, see Petrie, Scarabs and Cylinders, pl. LIII, no. 25c 7.