Top and bottom (center part restored) of a faience votice was-scepter, excavated at Faras in Nubia, Late period, MMA 26.4.46
Thing to left is 41.2.9 (Ceremonial helmet? / funerary crown? inscribed for the Osiris Hor-Psamtik)
(Full size underneath)- (this one from 2008 prints to 5x7, above one 2009 prints to 8x10)
"The spiral shaft of the djam-sceptre might be an imitation of lightning."(page 90)
"Gardiner holds that the head of these sceptres is probably the head of the Seth-animal. Wainwright drew attention to the special relation between these divine scepters and the god Seth. The nome sign of Oxyrhynchus, that was one of the nomes of Seth, consists of two was-sceptres, and an enormous was-sceptre was found in the temple of Seth at Ombos. Besides their function as sceptre in the hand of gods, was-sceptres serve to hold up the sky. As supporter of the sky Seth is appealed to in a prayer by Rameses II." (page 90) |
(Fischer's photo shows a fragment with the forked end)
From a late Middle Kingdom burial, Met museum
"subsequently identified as coming from Pit 211 of the 'priests' cemetary' at Deir el Bahri,
belonging to a certain Snwsrt-'nh, no earlier than the end of the Twelfth Dynasty"
from _Notes on Sticks and Staves in Ancient Egypt_, Henry G. Fischer, Metropolitan Museum Journal, 1979
(color photo ©JAL 2008)
(I have more info and examples at this page: http://www.joanlansberry.com/setfind/nk-was.html