Csornay Boldizsár - Dobos Zsuzsa - Varga Ágota - Zakariás János szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 98. (Budapest, 2003)

GYŐRY, HEDVIG: A Pataikos with Hawks on the Shoulders

A PATAIKOS WITH HAWKS ON THE SHOULDERS "The protection of Horus is the great hawk, which flies in the sky, on the earth, and in the Netherworld, and the protection of the patient is likewise."* INTRODUCTION In Egyptian art, free-standing statuette prototypes were often devised by recomposing two-dimensional images known from papyri, wall paintings or reliefs in three dimensions. This is especially true with New Kingdom anthropomorphic amulets: during the 18lh Dynasty more and more amulet types that were earlier conceived in relief boards had been refashioned as statuettes. The representations of the dwarf gods form an example of this process: initially, they were simply shaped miniature reliefs, but still before the end of the 18th Dynasty they had been transformed into complicated statuettes. In the case of the statuette type of the Pataikos-standing-on-crocodiles, the model for the basic type possibly is the form in which the dwarf god is often represented on the apotropaia, with knives and snakes in his hands.

1 As most of the apotropaia were connected to the delivery and the protection of new-born babies, and as they vanished by the end of the 18th Dynasty,

2 the dwarf amulets could easily replace them in the subsequent centuries. Their function could be similar to that of "the health amulets' of the goddess Hathor, which were also used to help the delivery,

3 and were thought to give protection against snake-bites during life and after death. The history of the type can be followed, on the basis of the stylistic changes, from the end of the 18th Dynasty until the Ptolemaic Period. The surviving artifacts of the Third Intermediate Period's booming bronze craftsmanship clearly testify that in this period there also was a vogue for multicomponenl statuettes. But the method of grouping multiple separate elements was not really applicable to amulets, simply because they were worn on the body. Thus for the representation of a complex scene with many figures, amulet producing craftsmen * Stele Metternich, Spell XIV, 226. 1 E.g. Altenmüller, H., Die Apotropaia und die Götter Mittelägyptens. Eine typologische und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung der sog. „Zaubermesser" des Mittleren Reichs II, Katalog. München 1965. p. 115, flg. 4, p. 117, flg. 9, p. 118, fig. 11. p. 119. fig. 13, p. 121. fig. 16. 2 Altenmüller, op.cit. I. Abhandlung, pp. 14-78. 3 Borghouts. J.F.. The Magical Texts of Papyrus Leiden I. 348. Eeiden 1971. Vs. 12,2 - 9 (31 ). Since there is no specification, i.e. exact hints to Bes are missing, it is likely that in this case the dwarf in general is required, without any special attributes. In art. the Pataikos figures fulfil this requirement the best. Whenever the special Bes figure is intended, there is an epithet or a miniature Bes as a hieroglyphicdeterminative in the text. For palaeographical reasons, the papyrus, said to originate from Memphis, is to be dated to the 18th Dynasty, but archaic expressions in the text show that at least parts of it were earlier. 1 1