This statuette is easily identified as an image of the god Ptah by his skull cap and his cloak or shroud from which his hands emerge grasping a striped was scepter, with its animal-head top and forked end. The artist has clearly shown the contours of the god’s shoulders, elbows, buttocks, thighs, and calves under the tightly wrapped fabric. Another distinctive feature of Ptah is his wide, straight false beard with waves of curly hair represented by horizontal lines. His eyes have traces of gold. His eyebrows are indicated by raised lines. He has a broad nose, a prominent philtrum, and thick lips. A representation of a broad, beaded collar covers his shoulders. The back is beautifully finished with a soft sheen that sets off the sensuous curves of the body. The only detail on the reverse is the rectangular counterpoise at the back of his collar, incised between his shoulders. The god stands on a thick, wedge-shaped base in the form of the hieroglyph for maat (𓐙)—the concept of truth and order—that alludes to the close association of Ptah and the deity Maat. A rectangular, 2.5 cm long tang that attached the statuette to a separate base (now lost) extends from the base. The statuette is solid cast.1

Ptah is one of the few Egyptian gods who is not represented in an animal or a hybrid form. He was a creator god, but unlike other deities who were credited with the creation of the world, the gods, or humankind through physical acts—such as forming people on a potter’s wheel or through secretions from crying or masturbation—Ptah brought the world into being through his thoughts and words. He was especially revered by artists who, like Ptah, had the ability to create, but in their case, statues. Although he was worshipped throughout the country, he had a special association with Memphis in the north. His consort was the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet.
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Additional Views of Cat. 30

Ptah was a very approachable god; images of him were located in some “hearing-ear” shrines where people could come to implore the gods for help. Pocket-sized stelae incised with images of human ears are, in some examples, identified as the ears of Ptah. These stelae, to which the devotee could address pleas to the god, worked somewhat on the principles of today’s cell phones by providing an immediate and handy line of communication, in this case through the depicted ears of the ever-helpful god.3

The base of the figurine has a partially legible inscription on all four sides that includes the wish: “May Ptah give life to Khonsuirdis.” As with the statuettes of the lion-headed goddess (cat. 26) and Osiris-Iah (cat. 29), the inscription has been positioned on the base so that the name of the deity appears on the front where it was most easily seen.
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For more on copper alloy statuettes, see About Copper Alloy Statuettes.5

Provenance

The Art Institute of Chicago, acquired in 1910.6

Publication History

Art Institute of Chicago, Thirty-Second Annual Report: June 1, 1910–June 1, 1911 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1911), 19, 62.7

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923) 41n2, 104–5.
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