Bust of the Goddess Sakhmet
Description
Object Label: Sakhmet, whose name means “The Powerful One,” wears a sun-disk and cobra on her brow, identifying her as the daughter of the sun-god Re. In her role as the Eye of Re, Sakhmet was dispatched abroad to destroy Egypt’s enemies. Angered because Re set another goddess in her place while she was away, the Eye refused to return and protect Egypt, until pacified by wine, music, and dance. The Egyptians explained the sun’s annual motion toward the south and then back to Egypt as the Eye’s departure and return. In other myths, Re’s Eye symbolized natural phenomena, such as the Nile’s annual flood and the Egyptian new year. Caption: Bust of the Goddess Sakhmet, ca. 1390–1352 B.C.E.. Granodiorite, 39 x 19 7/8 x 15 9/16 in., 443 lb. (99 x 50.5 x 39.5 cm, 200.94kg). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. W. Benson Harer, Jr. in honor of Richard Fazzini and the excavations of the Temple of Mut in South Karnak, Mary Smith Dorward Fund and Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 1991.311. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-4o-2024-08-06
Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A fragmentary bust of a lion-headed figure, possibly a deity.
The artifact is a stone bust depicting a lion-headed figure, likely a deity such as Sekhmet. The sculpture shows detailed carving on the mane and the body, although the head and part of the shoulders are missing. The stone material is dark and the carving style suggests fine craftsmanship. The figure is seated, with the remains of a headdress visible.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 1991.311 tier-2
- BKM-Object 4279 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.