This image of the hippopotamus depicts
the
heavy, lumbering beast at ease as if it
is resting
on a bank of the Nile River with its
head nestled
between its fore-legs. In keeping with
ancient
Egyptian artistic conventions, the
craftsmen have
captured the essence of this mammal in a
remarkably abstract manner with
restrained
modeling within a highly modernistic
abstract
design. Notice how subtly the details of
the head
are indicated with the slight depression
between
the eyes and the nostrils in the
animal’s snout.
Note as well the hieroglyphically
designed eyes
and their eyebrows. These observations
of telling
details have not been colored
naturalistically
because the hippo’s entire body is a
turquoise-
green in color, and that green surface
has been
enhanced with the addition floral motifs
done in
black glaze in a linear, calligraphic
style. The
turquoise color of the surface and the
profusion
of floral motifs rendered in black glaze
may be
taken to symbolize the Nilotic
environment in
which the hippopotamus lived and
prospered.
In general the hippopotamus,
particularly the
male of the species, was regarded by the
ancient
Egyptians as a representative of chaos
because
he often trampled and destroyed crops,
as this
famous passage from a didactic treatise
of New
Kingdom date reveals, “…Do you not
recall the
fate of the farmer when the harvest is
registered?
The worm has taken half the grain, the
hippopotamus has devoured the rest…”
Furthermore, the hippopotamus would
impede
travel on the Nile River and was widely
feared by
the ancient Egyptians because it posed a
hazard
to all boats trying to navigate waters
in which it
lived.
As a result, the hippopotamus was
greatly feared
because the ancient Egyptians believed
that their
journey to the Hereafter on the
nocturnal
counterpart of the Nile River would be
thwarted
by the hippopotamus just as this mammal
threatened boats on the Nile in real
life. It was
doubtless for this reason that images of
the
hippopotamus, such as this one, were
interred in
tombs. However, these funerary images of
the
hippopotamus were intentionally damaged
before interment with the deceased when
their
legs were broken off and discarded. This
intentional damaging of the statuette
was ritually
motivated to insure that all hippopotami
encountered by the deceased in the
Hereafter
would be similarly incapacitated, by
means of
such sympathetic magic, so that the
journey
toward eternal life would not be
thwarted by this
beast. The lack of uniform glaze on the
surface
of this animal would be consistent with
the
ancient Egyptian desire to
render the hippopotamus harmless in the
Hereafter.
However, the ancient Egyptians were
ambivalent
toward their symbols and often adopted a
polyvalent approach with regard to
individual
motifs. As a result, the turquoise green
of such
statuettes is itself a symbol of
resurrection and
renewal as were species of the floral
kingdom.
Consequently, the immobilized figure of
the
hippopotamus was still beneficial to the
deceased because its color represented
the life-
giving Nile River and its floral motifs
in black
glaze suggested both fertility and
rebirth.
Scholars have long maintained that these
figures
of the hippopotamus are enormously
popular
with art collectors. Most of the known
examples
depict the mammal standing on all fours;
a few
represent him sitting on his hind legs
with his
head lifted and jaws open as he roars.
There is a
smaller number still of such statuettes
in this
pose, which are prized for their
charming
depiction of the essence of one of the
most
majestic denizens of the ancient Nilotic
marshes.
Jannine Bourriau, Pharaohs and Mortals.
Egyptian
Art in the Middle Kingdom [exhibition
catalogue]
(Cambridge 1988), pages 119-120,
catalogue
number 111, for a discussion of such
statuettes
of the hippopotamus in Middle Kingdom
contexts.
Hans Wolfgang Müller, “Eine viertausend
Jahre
alte Nilpferdfigure aus ägyptischer
Fayence,”
PANTHEON 33 (1975), pages 287-292, for
one
of the most felicitous essays on these
wonderful
figures of the hippopotamus which
features a
reclining example like the one under
discussion.
Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson, British
Museum
Dictionary of Ancient Egypt
(London1995), pages
129-130, for a succinct summary of the
animal
and the Egyptian attitudes toward it.
