_-_20080315.jpg?width=1200)
Gold Ring with a Portrait of Ptolemy VI Philometor
Unknown · c. 180-145 BC
A heavy gold ring whose broad oval bezel is engraved with a man's bust in profile. He wears the pschent, the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, a false beard on his chin and a broad pectoral on his chest: the full dress of a pharaoh. Yet the face, with its rounded cheek and soft chin, is that of a Greek king, and the ring is thought to show Ptolemy VI Philometor, who ruled Egypt in the second century BC. The design is cut into the gold in intaglio, so that pressed into wax it would leave a raised portrait; such rings served as seals and as badges of loyalty for the king's officials and priests.
The double image is the whole point. To their Greek subjects the Ptolemies were Macedonian kings with a diadem; to the Egyptian temples they were pharaohs, and objects like this ring carried the Egyptian face of the dynasty into the hands of its servants. The ring was found in Egypt and the Louvre bought it in 1863; it belongs to the same reign as the altar from Thera displayed nearby.
Did You Know? A Greek king appears here as an Egyptian pharaoh, complete with the double crown and a ceremonial beard.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.