Enigmatic Relief in the Brooklyn Museum, August 2007

Enigmatic Relief
Limestone
Perhaps Late Period- Ptolemaic Period, circa 664-30 BC
Provenance not known
Accession # 70.2

The strange vignette of a pregnant hippopotamus with a lion's mane, similiar to the goddess Taweret, with a crocodile on her back and another nipping her paw is often found in Egyptian astronomical texts in connection with the northern constellations. However, the inscription at the left of this relief makes such a setting uncertain because it mentions Hapi, the god of the Nile's inundation. The textual genre and the provenance (temple or tomb wall or part of a sarcophagus?) thus remain unknown. The relief comes from either an unparalleled astronomical scene or a tableau featuring Hapi in which the representation of the hippo was "borrowed" from astronomical scenes. If the hippo is Tawaret, then the connection with Hapi is understandable because both had strong denotations of fertility.

Text from the Brooklyn Museum label.