Bonner, SMA – PDF, 157.

them from snakes, scorpions, and other noxious creatures.³ The front of these objects regularly represented Horus standing on two crocodiles and usually grasping snakes, scorpions, or dangerous quadrupeds. The reverse and, sometimes, other vacant parts of the stones were covered with magical inscriptions and often other magical figures (Pl. XXIV, Fig. 5). In many examples a mask of Bes is placed just over the head of the young Horus.⁴

Graeco-Egyptian amulets that use this type of Horus seem to be rare, but there is an extraordinary example in the Walters Art Gallery, a large oval haematite.⁵ On the reverse is Horus as a very chubby, dwarfish infant standing on the heads of two crocodiles. In each hand he grasps a snake, and on each shoulder there is an indistinct object, perhaps a tiny hawk, with the disk on its head. This heavy, dwarfish type seems to have been influenced by representations of Ptah-Sokar-Asar, who is sometimes represented as a fat, large-headed child holding two serpents and standing on a crocodile;⁶ but something approaching it is to be seen on inferior, carelessly executed Horus stelae.⁷ At each side stands a goddess, one hand raised towards Horus as in adoration, the other holding the ankh. Above is a mask of Mut with long thin arms supporting vulturine wings which droop downwards over Horus; there is a disk between these wings, and again over the head of Mut; ram, lion, snake, baboon, and uncertain objects below the crocodiles. This design is linked with the solar religion not only by the figure of the young Horus, but also by the obverse design of a scarab surrounded by a long inscription, some parts of which recur often on solar amulets.

A simpler design, published by Delatte, represents Horus as a young man, standing on two crocodiles and holding in each hand two cobras and a quadruped (jackal ?) grasped by the tail. Its relation to the magical stelae is obvious.⁸

A stone in the Michigan collection seems to be of a transitional type.⁹ Here a youthful god stands facing front, dressed only in a kilt, and standing on the ground, not on the two crocodiles. Wings extend outwards from his shoulders, the left hand holds a tall staff, the right, hanging at his side, holds an

³ Budge, Gods, II, 267; Daressy, Textes, Pls.1-8. These stelae are discussed by K. C. Seele in connection with two specimens in the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago (Journ. Near Eastern Stud., 6 Spier, Gems on CBd-1569, 43–52). An earlier treatment of the subject with more examples is that of Wijngaarden and Stricker, Oudheidkund. Mededeelingen uit het Rijksmuseum 22, 6-38 (Leiden, 1941). The magical texts are treated at length by A. Moret, Rev. de l'hist. des religions, 72 (1915), 213-287.

⁴ A small bronze stele of this type (14.5 X 8.5 cm.), which belongs to the Geneva Museum (Reg. No. D. 1329), is particularly noteworthy because of several magical types which are cut on its reverse side — cynocephali, ouroboros in a naiskos, pantheos, anguipede, Osiris, Harpocrates, sacred animals (Pl. XXIV, Fig. 5). In this accumulation of magical subjects it resembles the bronze heart published by Petrie (Amulets, 135aa, Pls. 22 and 49). The Geneva stele was published by Deonna, Rev. arch., 18 (1923), 119– 131. It is evidently contemporary with the Graeco-Egyptian amulets of the Roman period.

⁵ D. 251.

⁶ Lanzone, Pl. 98, 1.

⁷ Daressy, Textes, 9418.

⁸ Musée Belge 18, 50, Pl. 2, 7 (Athens). In the Geneva Museum there is a small bronze plaque (Reg. No. D. 1328) on which the place of Horus is taken by a young goddess, apparently a female counterpart of Bes, but not grotesque like him. There is a slight resemblance between this object and the Horus amulet published by Delatte. See Deonna, Rev. Arch., 18 (1923), 132-135.

⁹ D. 253.

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