Monday, January 1, 2018
Happy New Year!
6:48am

My holiday celebrations have been largely subdued, due to very painful ears. I don't get to see the doctor until tomorrow, so I've been hanging in there until then. Why do my ears get so painful with too much wax?

I did manage the accomplishment of finally finishing my gallery of Photos from Balboa Park's Museum of Man, Egyptian Galleries. We'd seen this museum back in 2016!

I was pleased to make a small discovery about a beautiful piece at the Met museum. Because I am short, I didn't see what decorates this jewelry box lid:


Jewelry chest of Sithathoryunet
Dynasty 12, reign of Senwosret II - Amenemhat III (ca. 1887-1813 BCE)
Ivory, gold, carnelian (restored: copper-alloy knobs, silver, faience, one carnelian inlay, and all the wood)
From El-Lahun, tomb 8, chamber E; Egyptian Research Account and British School of Archaelogy in Egypt excavations, 1914
Purchase, Rogers Fund and Henry Walters Gift, 1916, MMA 16.1.1


Side view showing the shaped lid...


As I am short, I missed this perspective showing four emblems of the goddess Hathor. (Museum photo)

The museum website says that because Hathor is "the goddess of beauty", the four emblems are especially "appropriate symbols for a cosmetic box." But there's more here. The very name of Princess Sithathoryunet, whose box this was, means “daughter of Hathor of Dendera”.


The ancients called "Dendera" "Iunet", (Source: Wikipedia


Cropped from Museum photo

Meanwhile, back to what I could see from my height:

(From info card)
"The decoration is composed of alterating djed pillars and symbolic 'false doors,' also known from sarcophagi and the architecture of mastaba tombs.

The excavators concluded from the position of the objects that this box must have been fitted with a shallow tray for the mirror (now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo) and a drawer with two compartments. The razors, 'rouge dish,' and whetstones in the case would have been in one compartment and the jewelry in the two opposite cases in the other."

I look forward to more happy discoveries in 2018. I might share some more photos from the Pompeii exhibit I saw last summer. I hope to get back doing art when I feel better. Meanwhile, I'm grateful Julia's health is better. I'm mostly hopeful regarding the year to come.

Happy New Year to all of you! May 2018 be fortunate in every way! Blessings to you all, dear readers!


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