The oval bezel of this ring is a double-sided, hollow plaque that swivels on its shank. Both sides have decoration in raised relief that was chased from the backside. The workmanship is exquisite, and the solder marks that joined the parts of the plaque are barely visible. Spirals of gold wire on either side may be the ends of the wire that originally passed through the plaque to secure it to the shank. The shank is composed of a piece of stiff, gold wire that is covered with a sheet of folded gold decorated with a scored pattern.1

This ring is part of a long tradition of wearing jewelry that bears a personal name, a fashion choice that is popular even today. One side of the plaque has two registers of signs that record the name of the title of the owner of the ring: The “Priest of Taweret, Hor[em]akhbet.” The upper register bears a hippopotamus with a crocodile tail (the image of the goddess Taweret) standing behind a tall, looped sa hieroglyph, 𓎃, that conveys protection. The title “priest” (hem-netjer) is at the right. Together, these signs spell “Priest of Taweret.” In the lower register is the personal name “Hor[em]akhbet,” spelled with a Horus falcon (Hor) and an image of a papyrus marsh (akhbet), 𓇈. This name, which means “Horus in the papyrus marsh,” refers to the myth in which Isis hid her son Horus from his murderous uncle Seth in the marshes of Khemmis in the Nile Delta. Although the name Hor[em]akhbet is known from the New Kingdom through the Greco-Roman Period, the style of the signs used here suggests a Ptolemaic date.2

The composition on the opposite side of the ring functions as a visual pun that also conveys the name of the owner of the ring. It shows Isis seated on a high-backed throne, nursing Horus. She wears her typical, lyre-horned headdress and sun disk. Her head lacks facial features. Her right arm is wrapped around the back of Horus’s head, while her left hand supports her breast to facilitate nursing. In an unusual depiction, her chest is shown frontally, each breast full and round with a long nipple. Her legs are shown in profile, with only one visible. Papyrus fronds are depicted at the left. The role of a priest of Taweret is particularly appropriate for an individual named Hor[em]akhbet (Horus in the papyrus marsh), because Taweret was the protector of children, just as Isis was the protector of her son Horus in the marshes.3

Because the decoration is in raised relief, this is a purely decorative ring and would not have been used as a signet. Double-sided, oval plaques have a long history in Egyptian jewelry design from at least the late Middle Kingdom onward.^[1]4

The interior of the ring is an irregular oval, with a diameter measuring between 14.4 and 18.3 mm. At its smallest point, the ring is equivalent to US ring size four or five.5

Provenance

Reverend Chauncey Murch (1859–1907), Luxor, Egypt; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1894.6

Publication History

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 111 (ill.).7

Roberta Casagrande-Kim, ed., When the Greeks Ruled Egypt: From Alexander the Great to Cleopatra, with contributions by Mary C. Greuel et al., exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 2014), 78, fig. 5-8; 98, no. 83.
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