Palette – zoomorphic, hartebeest PAL-0017
By Droux, Xavier
, Tomb N241.
1894–1895 : William M.F. Petrie excavation.London, Petrie Museum, UC4243.
Date : Naqada IIA
Date of funerary assemblage.
Material : Greywacke
Preservation : Almost complete
Preservation information :
The muzzle is lost from a break that runs through the eye depression; the front horn and the tip of the back horn are missing; the tip of the back leg is broken off; chip on edge.
Description
The palette has a mostly ovoid shape with added stylised zoomorphic details. The hartebeest is shown standing, with its head raised high. A small hole is drilled through the back, likely for attaching a string or thong.
Decoration
The horns are just sufficently preserved to determine that they are lyre-shaped and seen frontally, as is characteristic of the hartebeest. A hole was drilled between the horns to separate them from one another, yet, as with other examples of this type, the horns do not connect again above the hole. A small, triangular ear protrudes behind the head. A shallow depression is drilled on each side of the palette in order to represent the eyes. They connect at the their centre, which pierced through the thickness of the palette. The eyes were perhaps originally inlaid.
There is a marked hump at the back before the junction with the neck. The legs appear as two angular, stylised protuberances, with a small notch at the tip of the front leg representing the hoof. The tail is not indicated.
Dimensions (cm)
17.5
15.8
Additional information
pal_bov_2a
Comments
Palettes of shape-type pal_bov_2 are all carved in the shape of the hartebeest, although identification is sometimes tentative; sub-type 2a seems to pre-date sub-type 2b; see Droux (2019); this assumption is based on stylistic considerations since no palette of sub-type 2b comes from a known, precise archaeological context.
Acknowledgements
We thank Alice Stevenson for facilitating the study of this artefact.
References
1894–1895
Unpublished manuscript excavation Notebook [no. 72: Naqada Great Cemetery (tombs N162–N275, N400–N402, N521–N556, N600–N601, N701–N757, N800, with gaps), Cemetery T (tombs T18–T43, with gaps), Cemetery G (tombs G1–G6, with gaps]. Petrie Museum, UCL
, 18 ("slate").1896
Naqada and Ballas, 1895. Egyptian Research Account 1. London
, pl. XLVII.4.1905
Primitive art in Egypt; translated from the revised and augmented original edition. London
, 78, n. 1, fig. 54.1921
Corpus of prehistoric pottery and palettes. British School of Archaeology in Egypt & Egyptian Research Account 32, 23rd year, 1917. London
, pl. LII, 4S.2002
Bovines in Egyptian predynastic and early dynastic iconography, in: Hassan, Fekri A. (ed.), Drought, food and culture: ecological change and food security in Africa's later prehistory. New York & London
, Appendix C, no. 6.
