particularly old textbooks from the dawn of archaeology
The colour image below is a reconstruction of a bracelet that was purchased by the Louvre in the good ol' days of European diplomats ravenously collecting antiquities from whomever was selling in Egypt. (Plus a spot of digging themselves because swashbuckling was very 'in'.) The image is from E. Prisse d'Avennes 1878, Monuments Egyptiens, Atlas II, V20.
Pretty isn't it?
Rather a pity it is mostly fiction. These are not the original paste colours and some of the content is downright wrong.
Below is the same bracelet, but in Goodyear 1891, Grammar of the Lotus (plate 31). The book where he basically argued that every floral motif from antiquity was based on the lotus (no really, he did). He wasn't interested in the animals and it looks suspiciously like the artist just copied the d'Avennes drawing.
Still plenty of fiction here.
Gaston Maspero from the 1914 Manual of Egyptian Archaeology, and finally more accurate, but the artist has still embellished minor details. Clearly this artist visited the Louvre Museum in Paris.
On the upside now the 'griffins' look okay and are facing correctly.
Heading into the mid 20th century with a drawing from Leibovitch 1946-7, 'Le Griffon II', fig. 12. Which is quite clumsy and schematic, and this time one animal has been given a hawk-like head.
Wishful thinking. Plus it is a bit like they all desperately wanted the crest to be curls.
Finally, my own drawing of the iconography from the bracelet, using photographs of the original (but don't trust me either)
To quote significant other " you do realise dogs can't fly, don't you?"
The birdlike features are not clear now, rather it looks like a dog and the collar on the neck reinforces that impression. This is a fairly stereotypical Seth 'griffin' that occurs in mainly high end Egyptian art from the late Second Intermediate Period into the 18th Dynasty and travels on into the Roman period.
The exotic 'curls' that they determinedly kept adding to the head were copied from 'griffins' that were also drawn in the 1800s, copied from same from the tomb of Ramesses III and a plaque in the Louvre. However, those Ramesside griffin crests always face in the other direction.
The exotic 'curls' that they determinedly kept adding to the head were copied from 'griffins' that were also drawn in the 1800s, copied from same from the tomb of Ramesses III and a plaque in the Louvre. However, those Ramesside griffin crests always face in the other direction.
There is also a pair to this bracelet in the Louvre that has a lion and similar volute plants.
Louvre N1957/N1958 gold and glass paste cloisonne bracelets,
ca. 14th to 13th century, New Kingdom, Egypt.
The Psar referred to in early texts is actually Paser, a 19th Dynasty nobleman, but this connection is likely to be erroneus as the two bracelets were acquired by the museum in the early 19th century from the French consul to Egypt and very busy purveyor of antiquities, Bernardino Drovetti.
So the lesson from this is:
do not trust old drawings in out of date texts, and always go to the original object first.
Andrea Sinclair, March 2018
Sources
Prisse d'Avennes, E. 1878, Monuments Egyptiens, Atlas II. Paris.
Goodyear, WH. 1891, Grammar of the Lotus: A New History of Classical Ornament as a Development of Sun Worship. London.
Maspero, G. 1914, Manual of Egyptian Archaeology. London.
