Bound Oryx Dish
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Object Label
This work represents an Egyptian antelope, now extinct, called the scimitar oryx. The Egyptians attempted to domesticate this species during the Old Kingdom and to use it as a food source for gods and humans. Typically it is shown bound, because it was considered an enemy of Osiris.
This dish was used both to offer actual food to the deceased and, symbolically, to represent triumph over adverse forces.
Caption
Bound Oryx Dish, ca.1390–1352 B.C.E.. Wood, 4 3/16 x 1 3/4 x 9 in. (10.6 x 4.4 x 22.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 49.54. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum (Gavin Ashworth, photographer), 49.54_view2_Gavin_Ashworth_photograph.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Gallery
Not on view
Title
Bound Oryx Dish
Date
ca.1390–1352 B.C.E.
Dynasty
Dynasty 18
Period
New Kingdom
Geography
Place made: Egypt
Medium
Wood
Classification
Dimensions
4 3/16 x 1 3/4 x 9 in. (10.6 x 4.4 x 22.9 cm)
Credit Line
Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund
Accession Number
49.54
Rights
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.
Frequent Art Questions
What kind of wood is this?
Great question. I don't have the wood type identified in my notes, but my guess would be cedar. Wood was a luxury project in ancient Egypt as it had to be imported. Cedar would have come from Lebanon.Tell me more.
Because oryxes lived in the desert and the Egyptians were unsuccessful at domesticating them, they were associated with chaos and seen as a negative force. Here, it is shown bound. A symbolic way to exert control over them, thus containing their negative associations.This object is actually hollowed out slightly in the back and was designed as a dish to offer food for the deceased, which they needed to sustain themselves in the afterlife.
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