This statuette represents a jackal god, probably Anubis. It demonstrates how ancient artists were able to abstract naturalistic forms while still making the subject immediately recognizable. The animal stretches on the ground. The long front legs, almost square in section, are shown with claws yet without any indication of the ankle joints. The chest has been rendered as a slightly sloping plane leading up to the head with its long, narrow muzzle and large, erect ears. The nose is defined by two oval nostrils surrounded by lines that represent whiskers above the line of the mouth. The small, almond-shaped eyes are rimmed with raised lines. The body is long and angular. The haunches are very abstract. The knees are shown as raised humps that are nearly perpendicular to the base rather than being more naturalistically thrust forward at an angle as on other similar statuettes. The mid-legs are shown as vertical planes rather than sloping front to back, and there is no rendering of the space between each leg and the animal’s body. The rear paws are shown as flat paddles with the digits represented by ridges. The tail is lost. Other examples of such statuettes show that the tail would have hung straight down over the edge of the surface it was attached to, and the stub of the tail on this example suggests the same. The body is covered with small strokes that imitate the pattern of fur, a detail that was probably chased after the figure was cast. Two square holes on the underside, one under the jackal’s chest and the other under his back legs, allowed the figurine to be attached to another surface. The jackal is solid cast.
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Additional Views of Cat. 27

The statuette is exceptional for its excellent workmanship. Recumbent, as opposed to standing, jackal figures in copper alloy are quite rare—most examples are made of wood. The use of copper alloy for this statuette indicates its prestige and, by extension, that of its owner.^[1]2

Jackal Gods

The jackal is a desert animal that was known to disturb graves. The cults of the jackal gods were intended to placate their destructive nature, ironically transforming them into guardians of the cemeteries and the deceased that they naturally preyed upon.3

The jackal may represent one or the other of two different gods: Wepwawet or Anubis; unless there is a caption for a jackal figure, it may be impossible to determine which one is depicted. Both deities may be shown standing or recumbent. As the protectors of burials, they are depicted in reliefs on tombs and coffins, and also on funerary shrines. Standing figures of Wepwawet mounted on a pole were carried in royal processions.^[2] Some of the recumbent, wood jackal figures have been discovered in situ attached to the top of shrines or on the top of the curved lids of rectangular, wood, qersu coffins.^[3]4

Wepwawet is a very ancient god who is attested beginning in the Predynastic Period. He is often shown (with a text identifying him) on stelae and on Third Intermediate Period coffins. His name, which means “opener of the ways [to the afterlife],” as noted in the Pyramid and Coffin Texts, refers to his ability to enable the deceased to ascend to the celestial realm of the afterlife.5

Images labeled Anubis, usually accompanied by his epithet Lord of the Sacred Land (referring to desert cemeteries), occur from Dynasty 4 onward. Anubis remains prominent throughout the rest of Egyptian history. For example, he is often shown leaning over Osiris on his mummification bed to bandage the mummy, which by extension represents all deceased persons (see cat. 100 for Anubis with the burial bed). This imagery relates to another of his epithets, He Who Is in the Wrappings. He may appear with the mummy at the Opening of the Mouth ceremony at the entrance of the tomb (see cat. 10 for an image of Anubis at this ceremony), and he is also depicted at the judgment of the deceased, standing by the scale on which the heart of the deceased is weighed. He is attested into the Roman era, when he can be shown dressed in armor as a Roman soldier in the guise of a protector against evil demons.^[4] A fresco of a priest wearing a mask of Anubis adorned the temple of Isis at Pompeii, and texts refer to priests wearing jackal masks on the streets of Rome.^[5] But there was also a rejection of this Egyptian cult, as exemplified by Lucian’s second-century CE dismissive statement: “But you, you dog-faced Egyptian, dressed-up in linen, who do you think you are, my friend? How do you expect to pass for a god, when you howl as you do? … How, gods, can you tolerate seeing them [the Egyptian gods] worshipped on equal terms with yourselves or even honored above you?”^[6]6

Acquiring the Statuette for the Art Institute

This statuette was purchased for the Art Institute by James Henry Breasted in 1920 from the Cairo dealer Ralph Blanchard. Breasted described it as “a magnificent piece” and “the finest animal figure of its size” that he had ever seen in Egypt. He recorded the effort he made to ensure it came to Chicago, as he borrowed a bicycle and “rode as fast as I could to Blanchard’s place. I saved the bronze by only a few minutes, for Colonel Samuels, a wealthy British officer, was just about to pay money for the jackal … Under the circumstances, there was nothing to do but buy these two pieces [the other being cat. 7] outright. And I have done so to save them for the Art Institute.”^[7]7

For more on copper alloy statuettes, see About Copper Alloy Statuettes.
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Provenance

Ralph Huntington Blanchard (1875–1936), Cairo; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago through James Henry Breasted as agent, 1920.9

Publication History

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 107, 108 (ill).10

Günther Roeder, Ägyptische Bronzefiguren (Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1956), 343.11

Emily Teeter, “Egyptian Art,” in “Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” special issue, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 20, no. 1 (1994): 26 (ill.), 27.12

Geoff Emberling and Emily Teeter, “The First Expedition of the Oriental Institute, 1919–1920,” in Pioneers to the Past: American Archaeologists in the Middle East, 1919–1920, ed. Geoff Emberling, exh. cat. (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2010), 47, 48, fig. 4.16.13

Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago, by Karen Manchester (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012), 28.14

Emily Teeter, “Collecting for Chicago: James Henry Breasted and the Egyptian Collections,” Oriental Institute News and Notes 226 (Summer 2015): 9.15

Ashley F. Arico and Emily Teeter, “Collecting Ancient Egypt in Chicago,” Kmt: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt 29, no. 4 (2018–19): 69 (ill.).
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