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Egyptian Guardian Deity Medes-Tep ("Sekhmet" or "Maahes")

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Purchase Price: $22.00

 

Shipping Weight: 1.6 lbs.

 

 

 

This sculpture is a modern design labelled "Sekhmet" by the manufacturer. But since the figure is male he probably is not really Sekhmet. The headdress is also wrong for Sekhmet, whose most important relationship is to the sun as the Eye of Re, so she wears a solar disk headdress. It is a wonderful sculpture, and certainly shows a lion-god ready to smite whoever may need smiting -- which was the job Sekhmet did for Re.

There is a male lion god Maahes called "Lord of Slaughter", son of Bastet and Ptah or perhaps of Sekhmet and Ptah. (Divine genealogy gets confusing.) Pictures of Maahes could look a lot like this figure. But Maahes is generally shown with only one snake (uraeus) in his headdress. Also, the more powerful gods usually carry symbols of their power such as ankhs or scepters. This figure has only the two swords, suggesting he is a gate guardian figure as shown in many vignettes from the Book of the Dead or the Book of Gates.

After a bit of searching we found the source of this figure on the doors of the third shrine housing Tutankhamun's sarcophagus. He is named mds-tp, which means "Decapitator", and he stands with three other guardian figures protecting the doors of the shrine. There is a similar lion guardian, female this time, protecting the third gate of the Duat on the wall of Nefertari's tomb. Her name is given as "Virtuous of Countenance", which seems a surprisingly friendly appellation for a gate guardian. Virtuous or not, she is certainly grim of countenance and stands ready to bar any who try to pass.

Stuffe & Nonsense Egyptian figurines and collectibles are modern manufactured decorative objects, made in the style of ancient Egyptian artifacts.

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