A hypocephalus is a small disk-shaped object generally made of
stuccoed
linen,
[British Museum Dept. of Egyptian Antiquities, ''A General Introductory Guide to the Egyptian Collections in the British Museum'', Published by Trustees of the British Museum, 1971, p.146] but also of
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
,
[William Matthew Flinders Petrie, Edward Russell Ayrton, Charles Trick Currelly, Arthur Edward Pearse Brome Weigall, ''Abydos'', 1902, p.50] bronze,
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
,
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...
, or
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
, which
ancient Egyptians from the
Late Period onwards placed under the heads of their dead. The circle was believed to magically protect the deceased, cause the head and body to be enveloped in light and warmth, making the deceased divine. It replaced the earlier cow-amulet.
Symbolism
Hypocephali symbolized the
Eye of Ra
The Eye of Ra or Eye of Re is a being in ancient Egyptian mythology that functions as a feminine counterpart to the sun god Ra and a violent force that subdues his enemies. The eye is an extension of Ra's power, equated with the disk of the sun ...
(Eye of Horus), which represents the
sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...
deity. The scenes portrayed on them relate to Egyptian ideas of
resurrection
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and is resurrected. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, whic ...
and
life after death
The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving ess ...
, connecting them with the
Osirian myth. To the
ancient Egyptians the daily setting and rising of the sun was a symbol of death and rebirth. The hypocephalus represented all that the sun encircles — the world of the living, over which it passed during the day, was depicted in the upper half, and that of the dead, which it crossed during the night, in the lower portion.
Hypocephali first appeared during the Egyptian
Saite Dynasty
The Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXVI, alternatively 26th Dynasty or Dynasty 26) dynasty was the last native dynasty to rule Egypt before the Persian conquest in 525 BC (although others followed). The dynasty's reign (664–525 ...
(663–525
B.C.) and their use continued for centuries.
of the
Book of the Dead version of that period contain directions for the making and use of hypocephali.
[E. A. Wallis Budge, (1893), ''Mummy: A Handbook of Egyptian Funerary Archaeology'', Kessinger Publishing 2003, p.476]
Preservation
Hypocephali are kept in museums in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
(including several examples of the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
), the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
, and in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
— three in the
and one in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. No two hypocephali are the same, and there are just over 100 known samples of them.
Gallery of Hypocephali
File:BrusselsMuseumHypocephalus.jpg, Ptolemaic era. Unknown origin. Located at Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
File:BritishMuseumHypocephalusEA8445.jpg, Ptolemaic Era. Located at British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
.
File:Facsimile 2 copy with lacunae circa 1842.jpg, Facsimile of no longer extant Ptolemaic Era Hypocephalus of Sheshonq, see Joseph Smith Hypocephalus.
File:BritishMuseumHypocephalusofNeshorpakheredEA36188.jpg, Hypocephalus of Neshorpakhered found at the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
. 4thC BC-3rdC BC.
File:Hypocephalus (rmo leiden, cartonnage thebe ~300 bc) (3978123628).jpg, Circa 300 BC, located at Rijksmuseum van Oudheden
The (English: National Museum of Antiquities) is the national archaeological museum of the Netherlands, located in Leiden. It grew out of the collection of Leiden University and still closely co-operates with its Faculty of Archaeology. The ...
(RMO), Leiden.
File:Hypocephalus with heavenly cow (Cartonage, from Thebes, ~300Bc, Guest at RMO from Louvre) (5097016289).jpg, Circa 300 BC, located at the Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
, photographed when on loan to RMO.
See also
*
Joseph Smith Hypocephalus
Footnotes
External links
{{Commons category, Hypocephali
Images of hypocephali may be found at:
Hypocephali from Abydos
Egyptian artefact types