An Egyptian Limestone Gaming Piece Showing Two Asiatic Prisoners

Description:
A very rare limestone figure of excellent composition, showing two kneeling Asiatic prisoners, most likely of Syrian origin, given the features which in Egyptian art are characteristic for Syrians. They are shown naked, and tied together in a particularly uncomfortable position with their arms and legs strapped on their backs.

The details on the preserved head are beautifully executed: large eyes, disheveled hair and the bristly, pointed beard with which Syrians are always depicted. Also the triple rope with which their arms are tied together is clearly indicated.

This object was most likely used as a playing piece for a game, the exact nature of which is lost.

Published:
Ezio Bassani - Malcolm D. McLeod, Jacob Epstein, Collector (Milano, Associazione Poro, 1989), p. 207, no. 946.

Dating:
New Kingdom, circa 1550-1070 B.C.

Size:
Height 5 cm., width 3.8 cm.

Provenance:
Collection of Sir Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), London, mentioned in the post mortem shipping and probate lists, according to the Bassani publication; thereafter collection of Dr. Carlo Monzino (1931-1996), Castagnola and Lugano; thereafter with Ostracon Ancient Art, Thalwil, Switzerland.
Jacob Epstein was a sculptor. He was born in New York City in 1880, moved to Paris in 1902 to study pre-classical and non-European sculpture in the Louvre and other museums. In 1905 he moved to London. He built a large collection of sculpture from non-European cultures, which was exhibited in 1960, after his death; significant parts of the collection were sold at auction by Christies in 1961. The British Museum has 12 objects from the Epstein collection, all purchased at Christies. Carlo Monzino, the younger brother of Count Guido Monzino (1928-1988), was an important art collector, whose collection contained modern art as well as Japanese, African, Oceanic and archaeological objects.

Condition:
The head of one captive is lost. Some surface abrasion and wear, else in a very good condition with excellent details. Extremely rare!

Price:
€ 3,200

Stock number:
E1333

Background information:

1) The enemies of Egypt

The attitude of the ancient Egyptians towards foreigners was somewhat ambiguous. Foreigners were sometimes depicted in royal tombs, reflecting a positive attitude: foreigners also stood under the protection of the gods of Egypt (Cornelius (2010), p. 325). But on the other hand the Egyptians considered their own country as the centre of the world, the world of order (ma'at), whereas foreign countries were the periphery, the world of chaos (isfet); it was the task of pharaoh not only to maintain order, but also to spread it by controlling and conquering foreign lands, and as a result the inhabitants of foreign territories were also seen as people who had to be conquered, as enemies (Cornelius, p. 326).

Depictions often show these foreigners as Asians (usually with thick beards), Nubians (beardless), and Libyans (with a goatee beard, tattooed and with feathers in their hair) (Cornelius, p. 325; Poo (2005), p. 45), but in reality the Egyptians knew more enemies. Texts and art also represent them as the "Nine Bows". In this expression "bows" probably refers to the bow and arrow used by those enemies, especially the Nubians, whereas "nine" represents the totality of enemies. Nine is not to be taken literally here: in Egyptian "three" was also used for "plural", so nine, the "plural of plurals", covered all possible enemies, irrespective of their real number.

The term "Nine Bows" was already in use during the Old Kingdom. The earliest certain attestation is on a statue of king Djoser (third dynasty), where foreign captives, indicated as Nine Bows, are shown beneath the king's feet; the designation can also be found in the Pyramid Texts (Poo, p. 43-44); however, the concept may be older. A prehistoric mace head, excavated in Hierakonpolis, parallels two series of nome standards, one of them with figures of the rekhyt bird hung from them, and the other one, facing the opposite way, with bows tied to them, which has been explained as an indication of conquered peoples together with the people of Egypt, the rekhyt (Quibell (1900), p. 9 and pl. XXVIc, 5; Uphill (1966), p. 393; Waziry (2019), p. 18).

As a result of the Egyptian ideology, dominance over foreign captives was emphatically displayed, often using brutal and degrading imagery; depictions of foreign captives in humiliating or torturous poses are ubiquitous in Egyptian iconography (Janzen (2013), p. VI). In some cases a rope was tied to the neck of an enemy (so for example on the predynastic Narmer palette (Egyptian Museum Cairo, reg. no. JE 32169, CG 14716), where the rope is held by the Horus-falcon), elsewhere pharaoh pulls up kneeling captives by the hair (also the Narmer palette), lifting his weapon and ready to smite him, which in some texts is described as “the arm of my majesty is lifted to ward off evil” (Cornelius, p. 326).

One of the earliest depictions of prisoners whose arms are tied behind their backs can be seen on the so-called Battlefield Palette (British Museum London, inv. no. EA20791), dating to the late predynastic period.

Much of the violence may have been symbolic rather than real, as propaganda, showing the king as one who is capable to slay his enemies; at the same time the magical power of depictions would guarantee that the scenes would become a reality.

Therefore the motif of the vanquished enemy is ubiquitous. It can be found on pylons and the walls of temples (Étienne (2000), p. 21) and tombs, in the shape of small and large statuettes found in pyramid or tomb complexes or other monuments devoted to the security of the dead (Hayes (1953), p. 113-115 and fig 67; two Old Kingdom statues of a kneeling captive in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (MMA 47.2 and MMA 64.260); Étienne (2000), p. 76-77, fig. 3), figures made of clay or glass (Étienne, p. 50, cat. no. 108; p. 74, cat. nos. 5-6), figures made of ivory (Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 17.190.63; Strouse (2000), p. 49, no. 58) or figures with execration texts (Étienne, p. 81, cat. no. 83). Temple walls of the New Kingdom sometimes contain lists of foreign countries, depicted as prisoners with tied arms (Nims (1980), pls. 47-51; Poo, p. 43).

Rendering the enemy harmless, was not only achieved by immobilising his limbs (similar to how animals were sometimes depicted) and by forcing him into a posture of genuflexion (Étienne, p. 18 and cat. no. 17), but also by actually trampling him. Many are the images where the enemy is literally under the feet of the Egyptian opponent: shown as decoration of a statue base (Janzen, p. 97-98), on the base of a throne (Janzen, p. 99) or below his footstool (Cornelius, p. 329; Janzen, p. 92-93 and fig. 9), so that they are literally under the feet of the king, or depicted on the soles of the sandals (Cornelius, p. 329 and fig. 8; Janzen, p. 93-96), so that the person walking crushes him at each of his steps; similarly on the sole of a sarcophagus, often depicted there within sandals (see Étienne, p. 42, cat. no. 93; p. 75, cat. no. 12). Compare also canes, decorated with the figure of enemies; when using them, the king would either grasp the captives or, holding the canes from the other end, grind them into the ground or drag them through the dust (Janzen, p. 112-113 and figure 8).

The same idea is behind the official seal of the necropolis, which shows nine bound captives under the jackal Anubis (for a shortened version, showing three captives plus the sign for "plural", see Étienne, cat. no. 154).

To make it worse for the enemy, quite often captives are shown in uncomfortable positions. There is for example a New Kingdom granite statue inscribed with an offering prayer, dedicated to Peninhery, found in Qasr el-Koba and now in the Luxor Museum. It shows a Syro-Palestinian captive, the arms tied behind the back, who is kneeling and at the same time prostrate, his chin on the floor. See also an ivory from the Ramesside period depicting a fettered Asiatic captive whose arms are tied around his head (Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 66.99.50; Aruz (2008), p. 267, no. 167), and similarly on a Ramesside wall tile (Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 26.7.969), where however the position of the arms may have been influenced by the way in which Egyptian art depicts aspects, so that all important elements remain visible. For further examples see Janzen, p. 99-100.

Often captives are bound together on two sides of a symbolic hieroglyph (Ziegler (2004), p. 65, a scene under the window of appearance of pharaoh, and a scene on a limestone ostracon; Cline - Stannish (2011), p. 8, figs. 1-2, on a statue base of Amenhotep III; Nims (1980), pls. 47-52; Matić (2017), p. 113, fig. 5,4, below a throne of queen Tiye; Étienne, p. 21, figs 5a-b.

Less frequently they are depicted back to back with their arms directly tied together, as on our piece (Ziegler (2004), p. 65, left on the ostracon). Compare also a limestone mold for casting a wax figure depicting two bound captives (Raven (2012), p. 115, fig. 93), or a scene in papyrus Salt 825, showing four cages holding prisoners and Seth figures, bound back-to-back (Raven, p. 114, fig. 92).

2) Games

The Egyptians were fond of board games, especially "senet" (the game of passing) and "twenty squares"; clay jar-sealings of king Narmer already show a draughts-board with playing pieces on it (Nash (1902), p. 345 and pl. 1,1). At some point in the New Kingdom the belief took shape that the fate of a deceased person in the hereafter depended on his playing a game of senet in the presence of Osiris, as a substitute for the judgement ordeal, the outcome of the game deciding whether or not the deceased player would achieve immortality (Timothy Kendall, "Games", in Freed (1982), p. 263-272; André (1991), p. 41-43; 83-88; 123 ff.).

Several game boards have been found, often together with a die and playing pieces (Hayes (1953), p. 249-250; Hayes (1959), p. 25, fig. 10; p. 198-200 and fig. 113; p. 404-405; Scott (1973), fig. 36; Freed, p. 266-268, nos. 370-372; Ziegler (2004), p. 229, cat. no. 127; Crist (2016), p. 90, fig. 4.5).

Playing pieces usually consisted of two distinct types, representing the two opposite sides, comparable to white and black in modern games (Freed, p. 269; Ziegler, p. 229). Usually they were simple conical and spool-shaped pieces. However, some Egyptians preferred more finely made or more fanciful pieces than the ordinary, and some quite unusual varieties are known (for an overview of different shapes see Crist, p. 64-67 with fig. 3.6, and the lemma "playing piece" in the index, p. 208), for example pieces in the shape of (the head of) a lion (Hayes (1953), p. 45 and fig. 35; p. 225; Hayes (1959), p. 104), of jackals or Bes-headed figures (Freed, p. 269, no. 374).

However, there were also game pieces in the form of a bound captive (Nash (1902), pl. 4,1,2,4; Scott (1973), fig. 44; Freed, p. 269, no. 373; André (1991), p. 146 and fig. 136; p. 198; p. 202; Bienkowski - Tooley (1995), p. 49, pl. 66; Étienne (2000), p. 101, cat. no. 8; Ziegler, p. 229, cat. no. 128; Cornelius, p. 328, note 18; Bardiès-Fronty - Dunn-Vaturi (2012), p. 48-49; 120, no. 7; Crist, p. 66).

Most of these were made of Egyptian faience, but occasionally other materials were used, like quartzite (predynastic, sold at Christie's London, 5 October 2000, lot 412) or limestone (New Kingdom, British Museum London, inv.no. EA75190).

The use of gaming pieces in the shape of captives is not known with certainty. It is clear that they symbolize the adversaries of Egypt and of the divine order. However, suppressed by the magic of the image, their negative power was neutralized. Used on a gaming board, they probably were the counterpart of the pieces which represented positive elements. The two players would then have faced each other in a struggle that went beyond mere entertainment by referring to the eternal fight between good and evil (Ziegler, p. 229).

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