This image of the hippopotamus depicts the
heavy, lumbering beast at ease as if it is resting
on a bank of the Nile River with its head nestled
between its fore-legs. In keeping with ancient
Egyptian artistic conventions, the craftsmen have
captured the essence of this mammal in a
remarkably abstract manner with restrained
modeling within a highly modernistic abstract
design. Notice how subtly the details of the head
are indicated with the slight depression between
the eyes and the nostrils in the animal’s snout.
Note as well the hieroglyphically designed eyes
and their eyebrows. These observations of telling
details have not been colored naturalistically
because the hippo’s entire body is a turquoise-
green in color, and that green surface has been
enhanced with the addition floral motifs done in
black glaze in a linear, calligraphic style. The
turquoise color of the surface and the profusion
of floral motifs rendered in black glaze may be
taken to symbolize the Nilotic environment in
which the hippopotamus lived and prospered.
In general the hippopotamus, particularly the
male of the species, was regarded by the ancient
Egyptians as a representative of chaos because
he often trampled and destroyed crops, as this
famous passage from a didactic treatise of New
Kingdom date reveals, “…Do you not recall the
fate of the farmer when the harvest is registered?
The worm has taken half the grain, the
hippopotamus has devoured the rest…”
Furthermore, the hippopotamus would impede
travel on the Nile River and was widely feared by
the ancient Egyptians because it posed a hazard
to all boats trying to navigate waters in which it
lived.
As a result, the hippopotamus was greatly feared
because the ancient Egyptians believed that their
journey to the Hereafter on the nocturnal
counterpart of the Nile River would be thwarted
by the hippopotamus just as this mammal
threatened boats on the Nile in real life. It was
doubtless for this reason that images of the
hippopotamus, such as this one, were interred in
tombs. However, these funerary images of the
hippopotamus were intentionally damaged
before interment with the deceased when their
legs were broken off and discarded. This
intentional damaging of the statuette was ritually
motivated to insure that all hippopotami
encountered by the deceased in the Hereafter
would be similarly incapacitated, by means of
such sympathetic magic, so that the journey
toward eternal life would not be thwarted by this
beast. The lack of uniform glaze on the surface
of this animal would be consistent with the
ancient Egyptian desire to
render the hippopotamus harmless in the
Hereafter.
However, the ancient Egyptians were ambivalent
toward their symbols and often adopted a
polyvalent approach with regard to individual
motifs. As a result, the turquoise green of such
statuettes is itself a symbol of resurrection and
renewal as were species of the floral kingdom.
Consequently, the immobilized figure of the
hippopotamus was still beneficial to the
deceased because its color represented the life-
giving Nile River and its floral motifs in black
glaze suggested both fertility and rebirth.
Scholars have long maintained that these figures
of the hippopotamus are enormously popular
with art collectors. Most of the known examples
depict the mammal standing on all fours; a few
represent him sitting on his hind legs with his
head lifted and jaws open as he roars. There is a
smaller number still of such statuettes in this
pose, which are prized for their charming
depiction of the essence of one of the most
majestic denizens of the ancient Nilotic marshes.
Jannine Bourriau, Pharaohs and Mortals. Egyptian
Art in the Middle Kingdom [exhibition catalogue]
(Cambridge 1988), pages 119-120, catalogue
number 111, for a discussion of such statuettes
of the hippopotamus in Middle Kingdom
contexts.
Hans Wolfgang Müller, “Eine viertausend Jahre
alte Nilpferdfigure aus ägyptischer Fayence,”
PANTHEON 33 (1975), pages 287-292, for one
of the most felicitous essays on these wonderful
figures of the hippopotamus which features a
reclining example like the one under discussion.
Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson, British Museum
Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (London1995), pages
129-130, for a succinct summary of the animal
and the Egyptian attitudes toward it.
