Figure of a Lion-Headed Goddess in Front of an Obelisk
Description
<p>The ancient Egyptians donated figures of their gods for use in temple rituals; smaller images served as amulets to ensure divine protection. Goddesses in particular were viewed as protective deities. From earliest times, Egyptian venerated a wide circle of feline-headed female deities, such as Sakhmet, Tefnut, Wadjet, and Bastet. Leonine goddesses, usually Sakhmet or Wadjet (daughters of the sun-god Re), were often associated with an obelisk - a symbol of the sun god - demonstrating both their close relationship to the supreme god and his powers of renewal.</p><p>For the latest information about this object, <cite><a href='https://purl.thewalters.org/art/54.993' rel='external'>Figure of a Lion-Headed Goddess in Front of an Obelisk</a></cite>, visit the Online Collection of the Walters Art Museum.</p>
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A small Egyptian bronze figure stands in front of a tall rectangular-backed obelisk-like element, with a lion-headed goddess form holding a long implement or staff.
The object is a bronze figure rendered in the round on a flat, dark base. The main element consists of a standing deity with a clearly animal-headed (lion-like) face, facing forward. The deity’s body is compact and supports raised arms/forearms; one hand appears to grip a long, vertically oriented staff or implement that extends downward and upward in front of the figure. Behind the figure is a tall, rectangular, obelisk-like backing/shaft with a flat top and an uninscribed or undecipherable surface; it resembles a stylized obelisk rather than a full carved obelisk in the image. The bronze surface shows greenish patination and patches of darker corrosion, with red-brown accretions in some areas. No clearly legible hieroglyphs, cartouches, or alphabetic text are visible on the obelisk/backing or elsewhere in the provided view.
Cross-references (2)
- Walters-AccNum 54.993 tier-2
- Walters-id 1237 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Walters Art Museum (Egyptian).
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.