Figured Ostracon with a Ram
Unknown · New Kingdom, 1539-1069 BC (attributed on style)
On a flake of limestone the size of a hand, a painter has drawn a ram standing in profile with its curved horns and heavy fleece, bending to eat a lotus flower. Two columns of hieroglyphs accompany the animal. The colours are simple, red and black on the pale stone, applied with a reed brush in a few sure strokes. Look at the eye and the curl of the horn, drawn without hesitation, and at the flower, whose petals fan out beneath the muzzle.
The ram with curved horns was the animal of Amun, king of the gods, and also of Khnum, the potter god who shaped people on his wheel, and the museum leaves open which of them is meant here. Painted flakes of this kind are known in great numbers from the village of the royal tomb builders at Deir el-Medina, where artists practised, doodled and made small votive images. Dated on style to the New Kingdom, the ostracon was assigned to the Louvre in nineteen hundred and seven.
Did You Know? Ostraca were the scrap paper of ancient Egypt, and this flake of limestone preserves a quick, confident sketch that was never meant to last three thousand years.
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