The Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently presenting “Divine Egypt,” an exhibition that builds upon The Met’s over a century-long, deep engagement with ancient Egypt. This enormously broad and complex show aims to help visitors move past Western categorization and understand the ancient Egyptians’ approach to religious practice by focusing on the symbolism of the gods and their relationship to the Egyptian way of life. Curated by Diana Craig Patch, the Lila Acheson Wallace Curator in Charge of the Department of Egyptian Art at The Metropolitan Museum, with Research Associate and co-curator Brendan Hainline, the exhibition features about half of the objects from The Met’s own collection. Due to The Met’s standing in the world of Egyptian scholarship, major partners were willing to lend their masterpieces, creating what Patch describes as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity". The exhibition traces the divine landscape, the group of gods the Egyptians relied on to keep their world functioning daily, from about 4,000 BC through to the Roman period. A core concept emphasized is that absolutes were not part of the Egyptian worldview; they accepted multiple, sometimes overlapping, mythologies for creation and multiple deities who could perform the same or different tasks. Furthermore, the images and statues displayed were believed to house the spirit of the deity they represented.
The exhibition is structured to introduce viewers to the identification and function of these deities. The opening section, "Expressing the Divine," focuses on two figures, Hathor and Horus, to exemplify how gods were presented. Diana Craig Patch notes that Hathor is a preeminent female goddess whose many roles are reflected in her varied forms, while Horus, the god of kingship, consistently appears as a falcon or a falcon-headed man with a double crown. Iconography, including head ornaments, scepters, and dress, is essential for identification. Early sculptural representations of Hathor, such as a triad from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, already feature her well-known head ornament of cattle horns and the sun disk. The power of iconography to assert legitimacy is seen in a pair statue from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where Horus places an arm around King Horemheb, indicating the god is bringing the king into the divine sphere.
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Exhibition Tour—Divine Egypt
The subsequent sections explore creation and the maintenance of cosmic order, focusing on Ra, the sun god, who is the source of the light and warmth necessary to make the world work. Ra is unique because his depiction varies by the time of day being represented. In the morning, he may be the giant scarab Khepri, who pushes the sun across the sky, or he can be shown as Ra-Horakhty, a falcon-headed man with a sun disc, or even as a solar child emerging from a lotus. Ma’at, the goddess representing the fundamental concept of rightness, correctness, and truth—keeping the world as it should be—is also considered core to Egyptian ideology. Ma'at is depicted as a woman wearing an ostrich feather on her head, which stands for the concept itself, and the feather appears throughout the exhibition. The "Creating the World" section covers multiple creation accounts, including the Heliopolitan myth, which features the ennead, a group of nine deities. Key members like Nut, the sky goddess who gives birth to and swallows the sun daily, are represented, for instance, on the coffin of Nauny from The Met's collection, where she arches over the earth god Geb and the air god Shu. Other creation deities include Khnum, the ram-headed deity who creates people on a potter’s wheel, and Ptah, who created the world through speech and thought.
The section "Coping with Life" shifts focus from the gods worshipped by the king to how ordinary people related to these deities, since they were generally not allowed inside the temples. A key means of communication occurred when the god’s statue came out during a festival, placed on a processional boat, or sacred barque, and carried through the streets. This allowed people to talk to the deity about daily problems, providing a crucial feeling of connection. The centerpiece of a reconstructed sacred barque is a rare solid gold statuette of Amun from The Met's own collection, which was almost certainly one of the special cult objects brought forth on such barques. Finally, "Overcoming Death" addresses a universal concern by appealing to a core group of gods, including Osiris, the ruler of the afterlife, as well as Anubis (god of embalming), Isis, and Nephthys. Osiris, who was assembled into the first mummy by his sisters, is recognizable in his shrouded form, holding the crook and flail, and wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt. The exhibition concludes with a gold and lapis pendant from the Musée du Louvre, commissioned around 800 BCE, depicting the triad of Osiris, Horus, and Isis, the prototypical Egyptian family. This spectacular piece communicates vast amounts of information through its rich iconography, as it is inscribed with the gifts they promise to King Osorkon: long life from Osiris, rejuvenation from Isis, and strength and victory from Horus. Diana Craig Patch hopes visitors understand that these images were active, spirit-housed representations that helped the ancient Egyptians relate to life, death, and meaning. The goal was to look at the gods the way the ancient Egyptians did, moving away from more Western or classical interpretations that have historically dominated Egyptology.
