Rsearch Essay, Research Paper

The piece I choose to do for my research paper is called ?Wadjet?. It is an Egyptian piece of art. Wadjet was the protectress of the king and the tutelary deity of Lower Egypt. The sculpture is from the 26th dynasty.

The piece is a votive figure. The Egyptian iconography has gods that were shown with human torsos and animal heads. It was probably left in temples as a form of offering to the gods. The figure is 13 inches high with well preserved detail and description on the rectangular base that says the name of the goddess, ?Wadjet? to who the statue was dedicated to. The goddess ?Wadjet? is a female goddess shown with the head of a lioness. There was several other Egyptian Goddess that had the head of a lioness. She has an excellent amount of detail around her face and her body too. She is a very well preserved piece of art.

The appearance of this piece of art is that it is standing up-right with her right arm at her side and her left arm held also at her side, but it is bent at the elbow and extended forward in front of the goddess. The goddess has holes in both of her hands. This indicates that she was holding an object in each hand. The two pieces she was holding were a papyrus and an ankh. In the left hand she had the papyrus, it is the symbol of Lower Egypt. In the right hand she was holding the ankh, it is a cross with a loop at the top. Her presence in the temple would have been as a form of offering to the gods.

The piece has a very narrow waist that shows the Egyptian style of idealization. Idealization is the rendering of important figures in ideal physical condition as viewed by the Egyptians at that time. She is wearing clothes, she is wearing a thin garment that goes to about her calf, and it reveals her female features. The goddess figure is done with a good rendering of the female body. Her breast contours are very noticeable under her thin garment. Her navel is also visible as well as her midriff.

The detail in her figure is remarkably well preserved. The bronze sculpture kept the detail of the goddess very well. The detail is so good on the sculpture, that the detailed incised patterns on her lioness head?s mane are still visible.

The base that the goddess is standing on still bares the inscription that says her purpose and name. On the top of her head there is a full sun disc that represents the god Ra. Ra is the sun god. He was the most powerful god. She also has the uraeus. The uraeus was the sacred cobra. It is in front of the sun disc on the top of her head. On her arms she has several arm bands and bracelets. The detail is so good that she still has the broad collar around her neck. Her purpose as a votive figure was probably not her only function. She was too small to hold human remains like the canopic jars did. So she might have probably held the remains of sacred animals. The piece of art looks to have served a religious purpose in Egyptian art. It was small so that it could fit in a temple and it had the head of a lioness. The writing on the base of the sculpture does not say anything about her position or any sign of royalty. This means that she might not have been the sole possession of the Pharaoh at the time. The style of art she is done is in the pattern with Egyptian art throughout history, except during the amarna style. The material, bronze was more in line with the scholars of the later period of Egypt rather than that of the elder Egyptian time period. This piece would have been either during or after the new kingdom because it was during the 26th dynasty.

I enjoyed viewing this piece because it was a piece of Egyptian art that I had never seen before. I have always enjoyed viewing Egyptian art and it surprised me how much I had learned after viewing this piece.