Falcon Figurine

55.82.90

Information

Carved wooden figure in the form of a mummified falcon representing the funerary god Sokar, a god of fertility associated with the Memphite necropolis (the site of the great pyramids of the Old Kingdom) that later merged with the gods Osiris and Ptah. The figure is actually a furniture-fitting, once positioned on top of a coffin or a funerary box. Carved wood with applied layer of plaster and painted. John Garstang's team excavated about 250 tombs at "Beni Hasan South" near the mouth of the gorge of the Speos Artemidos in 1904, but this work is less well recorded than that of the earlier shaft tombs he excavated at Beni Hasan. CONDITION NOTE (1998): Large hole in base, split appearing in head, dry and weathered wood, remnants of pigmentation, surface dirt.