Ring: Aegis of Sekhmet/Bastet

Ancient Egyptian · New Kingdom–Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty 15–25 (about 1550–664 BCE)

Medium

Faience

Original size

Diam.: 2.4 cm (1 in.); Bezel: 1.4 × 1.1 × 0.3 cm (9/16 × 7/16 × 1/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Medieval

This small faience ring from ancient Egypt carries a quiet power disproportionate to its size — its bezel shaped as an aegis, the broad protective collar surmounted by the head of Sekhmet or Bastet, twin goddesses whose identities were often deliberately merged. Egyptian craftsmen working in faience — a glazed quartz-based material prized for its luminous blue-green surface — were producing objects of remarkable sophistication across the New Kingdom and into the Third Intermediate Period. Faience's colour was not merely decorative; it was cosmologically loaded, evoking the Nile, fertility, and the regenerative power of the sun. Rings of this type functioned as amulets as much as jewellery, worn to draw the protection of leonine Sekhmet or the domestic guardian Bastet into daily life. The blending of the two goddesses on a single object reflects a common Egyptian theological practice: rather than contradiction, the overlap expressed the full spectrum of divine protection — fierce and nurturing at once. A hand-painted oil reproduction translates the ring's richly layered symbolism into a format that honours its visual weight, rendering the deep faience tones and the serene authority of the deity's face in a medium that rewards sustained looking, as the original would have in its own time.