<em>Isis Nursing Horus</em>, 332 B.C.E.–30 C.E. Bronze, 8 3/4 x 2 3/4 x 2 1/8 in. (22.2 x 7 x 5.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 08.480.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.08.480.49_NegB_print_bw.jpg)

Isis Nursing Horus, 332 B.C.E.–30 C.E. Bronze, 8 3/4 x 2 3/4 x 2 1/8 in. (22.2 x 7 x 5.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 08.480.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.08.480.49_NegB_print_bw.jpg)

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Download our app and ask your own questions during your visit. Here are some that others have asked.

What's this hat all about? Sorta looks like bull horns?

Exactly! Those are two horns with a sun disk between them! You're looking at a statue of the goddess Isis, commonly shown with this headdress, along with the child Horus. The kind of cows native to Egypt also have horns like this.

When she isn't wearing this sun disk with horns, Isis is shown crowned with the throne hieroglyph, a method of writing her name.

What is the thing protruding from their foreheads?

That thing on their foreheads is known as a uraeus, a term which refers to the cobra included in ancient Egyptians royal headdresses. This cobra was a protective symbol worn by royalty and associated with the Egyptian goddess Wadjet. She used her fearsome powers as a cobra to defend the nation.

Awesome! Thank you.

Isis Nursing Horus

Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art

On View: Old Kingdom to 18th Dynasty, Egyptian Galleries, 3rd Floor

MEDIUM Bronze

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATIONS

Place made: Egypt
Place collected: Akhmim, Egypt

DATES 332 B.C.E.–30 C.E.

PERIOD Late Period to Ptolemaic Period

DIMENSIONS 8 3/4 x 2 3/4 x 2 1/8 in. (22.2 x 7 x 5.4 cm) mount (display dimensions): 9 5/8 x 2 3/8 x 3 1/8 in. (24.4 x 6 x 7.9 cm) (show scale)

COLLECTIONS Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 08.480.49

CREDIT LINE Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Bronze statuette of Isis holding the child Horus. Disk and horn headdress. Right hand at breast. Feet rest on small inscribed base. The inscription commences "May Isis give life" but the remainder is at present undecipherable.

EXHIBITIONS

MUSEUM LOCATION This item is on view in Old Kingdom to 18th Dynasty, Egyptian Galleries, 3rd Floor

CAPTION Isis Nursing Horus, 332 B.C.E.–30 C.E. Bronze, 8 3/4 x 2 3/4 x 2 1/8 in. (22.2 x 7 x 5.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 08.480.49. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, CUR.08.480.49_NegB_print_bw.jpg)

IMAGE overall, CUR.08.480.49_NegB_print_bw.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2014

"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.

RIGHTS STATEMENT Creative Commons-BY

You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.

RECORD COMPLETENESS

Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.

Download our app and ask your own questions during your visit. Here are some that others have asked.

What's this hat all about? Sorta looks like bull horns?

When she isn't wearing this sun disk with horns, Isis is shown crowned with the throne hieroglyph, a method of writing her name.

What is the thing protruding from their foreheads?

Awesome! Thank you.