A luminescent lotus blossom forms the bowl of this precious alabaster chalice from the tomb of King Tutankhamun, who ruled Egypt from about 1334 B.C. to 1325 B.C. Tutankhamun’s name appears in the framed inscription at center. The inscription running along the cup’s rim inspired its discoverers to call it the “wishing cup”: “ … May you spend millions of years, you who love Thebes, sitting with your face to the north wind, your two eyes beholding happiness.”
Carved from a single piece of Egyptian alabaster and inlaid with blue pigment, the chalice is more than 7 inches tall and 11 inches wide. Two sculpted lilies, flanked by buds, appear to grow out of its base. Their stems support the cup’s handles, which depict Heh, the god of eternity, holding in each hand a palm branch stripped of its leaves (the hieroglyphic sign for year) resting atop a tadpole (the sign for 100,000). The branch and the tadpole together suggest 100,000 years, expressing the long reign conferred upon the king by the gods.
Small alabaster objects were exported from Egypt to Canaan during the third millennium B.C. During the second millennium, the number and variety of these imported vessels increased, and stone carvers in the Jordan Valley began to make their own vessels from local alabaster. Artisans most frequently carved perfume vases out of the soft, translucent stone. Excavator Howard Carter, who in 1922 discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of Kings, the necropolis of ancient Thebes, found the chalice and about 50 alabaster unguent vases inside the tomb’s door, where robbers had left them.
A luminescent lotus blossom forms the bowl of this precious alabaster chalice from the tomb of King Tutankhamun, who ruled Egypt from about 1334 B.C. to 1325 B.C. Tutankhamun’s name appears in the framed inscription at center. The inscription running along the cup’s rim inspired its discoverers to call it the “wishing cup”: “ … May you spend millions of years, you who love Thebes, sitting with your face to the north wind, your two eyes beholding happiness.” Carved from a single piece of Egyptian alabaster and inlaid with blue pigment, the chalice is more than 7 inches tall […]
You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.
