About Me

My photo
Oregon, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

bark bark

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1940. www.metmuseum.org. OASC 
He's only 3000 years old.  This beautiful toy dog was carved from ivory during the 18th Dynasty of Egypt's New Kingdom (around 1390-1353 B.C.), and the handle on his chest makes his mouth open and shut.  Howard Carter owned him once; what lucky long-ago child played with him before that?  The Egyptian word for dog was "iwiw," which sounds like a bark. Imagine making his jaw flap and saying "Iwiw, iwiw."

1 comment:

parlance said...

I wonder if it was definitely a toy. Could it perhaps have been a grave object? It's exquisite. Thanks for posting this one.