Libyan Palette - Iconography

Iconography

The iconography of the palette is as follows: one side of the palette contains scenes of walking animals, in three registers, above a fourth register, two rows of four plants each. (Gardiner's signs T14 above N18, in typographic ligature terminate the last plant, a tree). – , combined: The three lines of walking animals are cattle, donkeys, and gazelles. The opposite side of the Libyan Palette contains seven cities identified by their hieroglyphs, shown within each city wall. Above each city is depicted an animal holding the mr hand-plough. While this hieroglyph can be translated as "beloved" (suggesting the animals are depictions of the symbol of each town), others have proposed that in this context a translation of "attacking" or "destroying" is applicable, and thus the animals are associated with the attackers, not with the cities.

Animals remain to be seen by the walls of only four of the cities on the damaged palette:

1. a hawk (Horus)
2. a pair of hawks, each surmounted on a standard (the Upper Egyptian nome of Herui, modern capital Qift)
3. a scorpion
4. a lion

The iconography of walking lines of animals within registers can also be seen on the ivory handle of the Gebel el-Arak Knife.

The palette is made of schist, is 18.5 cm long (originally estimated to have been around 70 cm tall and 21 cm wide. Housed in Room 43 on the ground floor of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, its Journal d'Entrée number is JE27434 and its Catalogue Général number is CG14238.