This 5.5-inch-high stone headrest was excavated in a tomb at Tell Ibrahim Awad in the eastern Nile Delta. Part of a larger cemetery that dates between the First Intermediate period and the middle of ancient Egypt’s 12th Dynasty (c. 2475–1900 B.C.E.), the tomb contained rather meager finds, including plaster fragments and traces of decayed reed mats. Only the skull of the deceased man, aged 20–25, remained in place with the headrest underneath. Although this example is relatively crude in form, headrests were popular throughout ancient Egypt, and some pharaonic burials contained elegant versions made of wood, ivory and gold. In Egypt headrests were believed to protect the head of the deceased from evil spirits and sometimes bore magical inscriptions.
Different styles of headrests have been discovered in Israelite tombs of the First Temple period (1000–586 B.C.E.), perhaps reflecting Egyptian influence. There, however, the rock-cut benches of the burial caves sometimes had hollowed-out depressions for the head or carved headrests in the shape of a horseshoe or an omega (Ω; also called a “Hathor wig” after the iconographic hairstyle of the Egyptian goddess Hathor), serving as a kind of stone pillow for the head.a Although differing interpretations have been suggested for the Israelite burial headrests’ significance, archaeologist Gabriel Barkay believes that they, like the Egyptian examples, mimic the headrests that people slept on in life.
A. Yarn spool from Greece
B. Headrest from Egypt
C. Petrified dog biscuit from Pompeii
D. Copper ingot from Edom
E. Loom weight from Ur
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