Knife handle K 1262b
The knife handle K 1262b is the handle made of ivory of a ceremonial knife from the predynastic period (probably Naqada IId, around 3200 BC) of Egyptian history . He was found in the late 2000s in the U cemetery in Umm el-Qaab near Abydos .
Finding circumstances
The knife handle made of hippopotamus ivory is in two fragments, which were discovered when the backfilling of graves U-127 and Up was sifted through again. Their original origin can no longer be determined exactly, but it is possible to narrow it down to the graves of the Naqada IId level. Günter Dreyer suspects the origin of the knife in the group of graves U-132-136, north of Up.
description
The two fragments fit together exactly. Together they have a length of 7.5 cm, a height of 3.7 cm and a maximum diameter of 0.6 cm. The full knife handle was probably originally about 8 cm long and 4 cm high. On the pommel side, part of the blade bed is still preserved, which was about 2 cm deep. Otherwise this side is completely weathered and nothing of the original decoration has been preserved.
It is different with the front. About three quarters of this has been preserved and shows four depictions of rows of animals oriented lengthways to the knife blade. The first row originally showed five African elephants , of which the first, second and fifth have been preserved. The first two elephants each kick two snakes wound around each other . A third pair of snakes can still be seen behind them, even if the elephant belonging to them has not survived. The fifth elephant has no snakes. The front part of a fish can still be seen behind him . The second row shows a giraffe , in front of which a saddle stork and possibly an erect snake should be added. Behind the giraffe there are eight (but nine after the associated drawing) more birds, probably all saddle storks. Maybe a smaller bird followed behind the last one. In the third row are six lionesses with drooping and slightly curled tails. In the fourth and last row, six cattle were finally shown, of which number one and number five are no longer preserved.
literature
- Günter Dreyer : Motifs and dating of the decorated predynastic knife handles. In: Christiane Ziegler (ed.): L'art de l'Ancien Empire égyptien. Actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre par le Service culturel les 3 et 4 avril 1998 . La Documentation française: Musée du Louvre, Paris 1999, pp. 195–226.
- Günter Dreyer: A new fragment of a decorated knife handle from Abydos. In: Ola el-Aguizy, Mohamed Sherif Ali (Ed.): Echoes of Eternity. Studies presented to Gaballa Aly Gaballa (= PHILIPPIKA. Marburg antiquity treatises. Vol. 35). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 15–22 ( restricted online version ).