Happy #Caturday from the Brooklyn Museum! This is a monthly celebration of cats based on our ex
Happy #Caturday from the Brooklyn Museum! This is a monthly celebration of cats based on our exhibition Divine Felines: Cats in Ancient Egypt.According to myth, the goddess Wadjet was one of the daughters of the sun god, Re. Her form of a lion-headed female represents the fierce nature and power of this goddess. In this guise she helped her father battle against the serpent Apep. It may seem surprising that bronze statues of Wadjet like this one usually contained mummies of ichneumons (i.e. Egyptian mongooses), rather than felines. But, their connection becomes clear when we realize that because mongooses are successful serpent hunters, to the ancient Egyptian mind, their power over the mythological serpent Apep matched that of the leonine goddess, Wadjet.See Seated Wadjet and other ancient Egyptian cats on view now in #DivineFelines! Posted by Yekaterina Barbash -- source link
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