Djed Pillar Amulet
Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BCE)
Ancient Egyptian
Faience; 4.7 × 1.9 × 0.7 cm (1 15/16 × 13/16 × 5/16 in.)
The Art Institute of Chicago, X7
The djed pillar conveys the concepts of endurance and stability in reference to human existence. This hieroglyph is thought to represent a stylized tree that became equated with the backbone of the god Osiris, with the column symbolizing his vertebrae and the cross bars his ribs. This equation of the djed pillar with Osiris is confirmed by Book of the Dead Spell 155—“Osiris, you have your backbone, you have your vertebrae”—illustrated with an image of this amulet.[1] The djed pillar can be further personified as the god Osiris through the addition of eyes at the top of the column, arms and hands at the sides, and, in some cases, the god’s atef crown (for such a djed on the shin area, see cat. 99). Djed pillars are known from at least Dynasty 3, well before the appearance of Osiris, when they appeared on architectural friezes in the subterranean chambers of the Step Pyramid complex of King Djoser, and on a statue base of Imhotep, the architect of that complex.[2] The djed pillar was a popular form for amulets throughout the rest of ancient Egyptian history.1
According to Spell 155, the djed amulet was to be placed on the throat of the mummy, but examples have been found in other locations as well. In the Book of the Dead, one who was equipped with the djed amulet would “not be kept away from the gates of the west [the domain of the blessed dead].”[3]2
This large djed amulet in vibrant blue-green faience was mold made. Thin vertical lines between the crossbars accentuate the pillar’s shape on the front, but they are not repeated on the back (fig. 1). In contrast, four horizontal bands wrap around the pillar, running under the rectangular backpillar that was added to the highly detailed amulet prior to firing. A horizontal piercing through the join between the backpillar and the djed on the reverse would have allowed it to be attached to a mummy or strung on a cord.3
Fig. 1
Back of cat. 95.
For more on amulets, see About Amulets.4
Provenance
The Art Institute of Chicago, by 1923. 5
Publication History
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 124.
6
- Thomas George Allen, trans., The Egyptian Book of the Dead or Going Forth by Day: Ideas of the Ancient Egyptians Concerning the Hereafter as Expressed in Their Own Terms, Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 37 (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1974), 154. For an image of the vignette, see Raymond O. Faulkner, trans., The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1994), pl. 32. Prior to Dynasty 5 when Osiris is first attested, the djed was associated with Sokar. See Carol Andrews, Amulets of Ancient Egypt (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 82.
- Mark Lehner, The Complete Pyramids of Ancient Egypt (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997), 88, 92. For the statue base of Imhotep (Cairo JE 49889), see Dietrich Wildung, Egyptian Saints: Deification in Ancient Egypt (New York: New York University Press, 1977), 32, fig. 24.
- Allen, Egyptian Book of the Dead, 155.
Emily Teeter, “Cat. 95 Djed Pillar Amulet,” in Ancient Egyptian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago by Emily Teeter and Ashley F. Arico, ed. Ashley F. Arico (Art Institute of Chicago, 2025), https://doi.org/10.53269/9780865593213/97.
© 2025 by The Art Institute of Chicago. This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
