Hedvig Győry: Mélanges offerts a Edith Varga „Le lotus qui sort de terre” (Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts Supplément 1. Budapest, 2001)

LÁSZLÓ KÁKOSY: A late Horus cippus

head of the deity.

14 These polycephalic divinities of strangely compounded shapes suggest the Supreme Being with diverse manifestations. They demonstrate that the nature of Bes at that time was already susceptible to abstract theological speculations. Nevertheless, Bes kept his popular protective function; he is frequently represented in amulet form and his image is found in outstanding position in the mammisis.

15 The god's high mark of popularity is shown by his sculptures of huge proportions in Saqqara

16 and in the Bahariya Oasis where a temple of Bes has recently been discovered.

17 The small stela is an example of a declining but earnestly pursued craft in an age, which adhered to the old ways without really comprehending the sacred language of the past. Stylistic considerations and the size of the Bes head suggest a dating to the Late Ptolemaic Period; this date is supported by the meaningless inscriptions on both sides of the slab.

18 We do not possess positive evidence for the producing of new Horus stelae in the Roman Period

1

', when they seem to be substituted by the magical gems often provided with the figure of the Pantheistic Bes.

20 Nevertheless, they remained in high esteem until as late as the 4th cent. A. D.,

21 and they appear even in a Christian ambience in the St. Menas centre of pilgrimage.

22 I offer this modest contribution with the greetings of an old friend to Edith Varga who had a very important part in the extension and flourishing of the Egyptian Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest as well as in the education of young Egyptologists. László Kákosy Eötvös Lóránt University, Budapest 14 S. Sauneron, Le papyrus magique illustré de Brooklyn (Brooklyn Museum 47.218.156), Brooklyn 1970, frontispiece and figs. 2-3. Fr. Daumas, Les mammisis des temples égyptiens, Paris 1958, pp. 137-144. 16 J. E. Quibell,Saqqara (1905-1906) 12-14, pis. I. XXVI, XXXIII. (chapels related to cults of fertility); P. Lauer - Ch. Picard, Les statues ptolèmdiques du Sarapieion de Memphis, Paris 1955, p. 9, fig. 5. (Sarapicion in Memphis). ,; Zahi Hawass, Valley of the Golden Mummies, Cairo 2000, pp. 169-173; earlier (Saite period) cult of Bes in Bahariya: Ahmed Fakhry. The Oases of Egypt II. Bahariyah and Farafra Oases, Cairo 1974, pp. 83-84. ,s Sternberg-El Hotabi, op. cit (note 3), part I pp. 146-7, 151, part II pl. XL, XLI, XLIII, XLV, XLVII. " See, however, Stembcrg-El Hotabi op. cit (note 3) who dates a group on the early Roman Age. Part I p. 159. 20 C. Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets Chiefly Graeco-Egyptian, Ann Arbor - London 1950, pp. 25, 294-297; A. Delatte - Ph. Derchain, Les intailles magiques gréco-égyptiennes, Paris 1964, pp. 126-140; H. Philipp, Mira et magica, Mainz 1986, pp. 109-110. 21 F. De Salvia, "Oro sui coccodrilli"nellaRoma Constanliana, in: U. Luft(ed), Studio Aegyptiaca XIV Festschrift Kákosy, Budapest 1992, pp. 509-517. " K-M. Kaufmann, Menas und I lonis-Harpocratcs im Licht der Ausgrabungen in der Menasstadt, Orlens Christianus NS. 1(1911), p. 93; K. M. Kaufmann, Die heilige Stadt der Wüste, München 1924, p. 207; V. von Droste zu Hülshofl-B. Schlick-Nolte, Liebighaus-Museum Alter Plastik Ägyptische Bildwerke Bd. III, Melsungen 1993, pp. 237-241, Kat. nos. 55, 56.