Playing with Fire
Initial Observations on the Religious Uses of Clay Cobras from Amarna
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10959673 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kasia Szpakowska (0000-0001-9254-9495, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2003 |
| Volume | 40 |
| Pages | 113 |
| Publication date | 2003-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0065-9991 • E-ISSN: 2330-1880 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/40000294 |
| OpenAlex | W2164520825 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
In the galleries of the Bolton Museum in England1 sits a small blue clay figurine in the shape of a rearing cobra.2 With its asymmetrical shoulders, lumpy mismatched eyes, roughly shaped form, and odd cone-shaped bulge rising up its middle, on first glance it looks rather like a child's toy or a reject from a potter's experiment. Yet, although it is a far cry from the gilded uraei that graced the foreheads of the pharaohs, this humble artifact and others like it may represent one material manifestation of the usually undetectable religious practices of Egyptians living in the New Kingdom. This clay cobra is not a unique artifact as comparable figures have been found in a number of other New Kingdom contexts such as the settlement site of Kom Rabia (in Memphis),3 in Qantir,4 in Sais,5 in Kom Firin,6 in Akoris,7 in burials in Sakkara,8 in the fortress-town of Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham,9 in the way-station of Haruba,10 even in the town of Kamid el-Loz,11 and the Late Bronze Age garrison at Beth Shan12 (fig. 1). I am currently aware of over 200 fragments, and as my research
Archaeology · Art · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Ancient Near East History · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Geology · History
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,23 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2021 (9) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |