Bring your auction to collectors worldwide!
Get listed nowBy subscribing, you are agreeing to the privacy policy. Unsubscribe anytime.
Barnebys HQ
Brahegatan 10
BOX 5038
114 37 Stockholm
All auctions / Ethnographical / Egyptian Predynastic Pear-Shaped Stone Mace Head on Custom Stand
North Africa, Egypt, Predynastic period. A stone mace head shaped like an inverted pear or teardrop. Its broad, rounded shoulder tapers gradually to a narrower base. A cylindrical shaft hole is bored straight through the long axis. Its mouth sits neatly at the crown, where a wooden haft would once have passed. The stone has been ground and burnished to an even, tactile sheen. Pale cream areas show through clouds of russet and chocolate-brown mottling, and a few small natural pits mark the surface. The pear form succeeded the earlier flat disc mace head in the Nile Valley. It was a weapon, but probably also a token of authority, and the form later became a lasting emblem of royal power in Egyptian art. The mace head comes with a custom display stand. In Egypt, the pear-shaped mace head is generally linked with the Naqada II (Gerzean) phase, when it largely replaced the disc-shaped heads of Naqada I. Its rounded, compact mass would have delivered a concentrated blow. Over time, however, the mace became a symbol more than a battlefield tool. By the close of the Predynastic period, rulers were shown on ceremonial palettes and mace heads raising the pear-headed mace over kneeling enemies, as on the Narmer Palette. This "smiting the enemy" pose remained a standard royal image for the next three thousand years. Item # 204397
Estimate:£378.37
To the auctionView all items fromArtemis Fine ArtsorEthnographical
Estimate:
£378.37
OCT 8 | 3:00 PM
OCT 8 | 3:00 PM
Bring your auction to collectors worldwide!
Get listed now£7.6
OCT 17 | 10:00 PM
