Healing Statue of a Man Holding a Stele of Horus
Unknown · Ptolemaic period, fourth century BC (attributed on style)
A man in a high kilt and a bag-shaped wig stands holding a stele against his body, and every surface of the dark greywacke, his chest, his kilt, the back pillar and the base, is covered in tiny hieroglyphs. On the stele the young Horus stands on two crocodiles, grasping snakes in his fists, with the grotesque face of the god Bes above his head. Around him are ranks of smaller deities. The statue is a little under seventy centimetres high. Look at the density of the text, cut so finely that it reads like a fabric wrapped around the figure.
The inscriptions are magical spells against the bites of snakes and scorpions and other poisons. Statues of this kind were set up in temple courtyards or houses; water was poured over them, absorbed the power of the spells and was drunk or applied to the wound. The figure was made in the fourth century before Christ, in the early Ptolemaic period, and belongs to a class of healing statues that survive in only a few examples. The Louvre bought it at a public sale in eighteen ninety-eight.
Did You Know? Water poured over the spell-covered stone was collected and drunk by the sick, who swallowed the magic along with the water.
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