The Hunters Palette or Lion Hunt Palette is a 5,000-year-old cosmetic palette that is among the few objects that feature the earliest Egyptian bas-reliefs from the late predynastic period of Naqada III. The Hunters Palette is decorated on one side only with scenes in low relief showing iconography of lion hunting as well as the hunting of other animals such as birds, desert hares, and gazelles. Three men carry the standards denoting different tribes or provinces, and the other men carry weapons, which include the bow, spear, mace, throw-stick, and a rope used for tethering. Two iconographic conjoined bull-forefronts adorn the upper right alongside a hieroglyphic symbol.
The palette is broken; one of the parts is held by the British Museum. The other part is in the collection of the Louvre. Originating in the late prehistory of Egypt at around 3100 BC, the Hunters Palette is one of the very few cosmetic palettes found. It represents an archaeological artifact, used in predynastic Egypt to grind and apply ingredients for cosmetics. The decorative palettes of the late 4th millennium BCE appeared to have lost their cosmetic function and became commemorative and ornamental objects.
During the fourth millennium BC, early Egyptians of the lower Nile valley used elaborate stone palettes to grind eyeshadow. It is assumed that the eyeshadow was green, made from copper ore and that the ritual played an essential role in their ceremonial or religious customs. The palettes eventually became art objects and treasured objects that were later placed with the deceased in their tombs.
Reflections
- Ceremonial palettes have their origins in the evolution of cosmetic pallets into ceremonial and ritualistic objects. This evolution may not have happened if the use of cosmetics was not an essential ritual in ancient Egypt. Cosmetic use and the application of eyeshadow played a vital ritual role in early Egyptian culture and must have been viewed as imbuing special powers. How did their attitudes to the use of cosmetics vary from our practice today?
- Note the wounded lion with five arrows. At what stage in our history did the lion go from being the king of the hunters to being the hunted. Was it with the introduction of some of the weapon technology, such as bow and arrow, mace, throwing sticks, and spears, shown in this sculpture?
Hunters Palette (also known as Lion Hunt Palette)
- Artifact: Hunters Palette (also known as Lion Hunt Palette)
- Date: 3100 BCE
- Culture: Naqada III period
- Find Spot: El-Amarna, Egypt
- Materials: Grey mudstone
- Dimensions: 66 cm x 26 cm
- Acquisition: 1888
- Museum: The British Museum
A Tour of the British Museum
Ancient Egypt and Sudan Collection
- The Rosetta Stone
- The Battlefield Palette 3100 BC
- Quartzite Head of the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III
- Colossal Granite Statue of Amenhotep III
- Hunters Palette
- Tomb of Nebamun
- Younger Memnon (Ramesses II)
Middle East Collection
- The Lion Hunt
- Cyrus Cylinder
- Royal Game of Ur
- Gilgamesh Flood Tablet
- Stela of Shamshi-Adad V
- Standard of Ur
- Ram in a Thicket
- Tell al-‘Ubaid Copper Lintel
Ancient Greece and Rome Collection
- Marble figure of a Woman – Spedos Type
- The Parthenon Marbles
- The Parthenon Frieze
- Metopes of the Parthenon
- Pedimental Sculptures of the Parthenon
- The Erechtheion Caryatid
- Lion from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
- Bust of Pericles
- Aegina Treasure
- Townley Caryatid
- Bronze Statue of a Youth
- Thalia, Muse of Comedy
- Nereid Monument
- Sarcophagus of Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa
- Lely Venus – Crouching Aphrodite
- Tomb of Payava
- Marble Portrait Bust of the Blind Poet Homer
Britain, Europe, and Prehistory Collection
- Ain Sakhri Lovers
- The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial
- Lewis Chessmen
- Holy Thorn Reliquary
- Mechanical Galleon
- Black St George Icon
- Knight Aquamanile
- Gold Mold Cape
Asian Collection
- Seated Buddha from Gandhara
- Statue of Tara
- Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
- Avalokiteshvara – Guanyin
- Nandi – Figure of the Humped Bull of Śiva
- Garuda
- Budai Hesheng
- Luohan – Yixian Glazed Ceramic Sculpture
Africa, Oceania and the Americas Collection
- Double-Headed Serpent
- Hoa Hakananai’a / Moai from Easter Island
- Hawaiian Feathered Helmet
- Bronze Head from Ife
- Benin Ivory Mask
The Prints and Drawings Collection
- “Studies of a Reclining Male Nude” by Michelangelo
- Newport Castle by J. M. W. Turner
- “Hampstead Heath” by John Constable
- “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” by Katsushika Hokusai
- “Rainstorm Beneath the Summit” by Katsushika Hokusai
Information on The British Museum
- Masterpieces of the British Museum
~~~
“Experience will show you,
a master can only point the way.”
– Egyptian Proverbs
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Photo Credit: 1) British Museum [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons
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