Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Egyptian Painting

          This is a painting of the goddess of war,
Sekhmet and the two kings of lower and upper Egypt.  It takes place before Egypt was united into one country, and its two sections were engaged in war to obtain more land and power.  As you can see, the crowns of each king are from their respective areas, and show that they were made before Egypt was combined and the two crowns were put together to make one for the high king.  These two pharaohs in the picture are praying to Sekhmet for victory in battle against each other.  The war goddess has the shape of a woman with a lion's head, and that's why she has whiskers.  This picture would be a part of the story explaining the battles between lower and upper Egypt, and the hieroglyphs in the background would be there to help explain what is happening in Egypt at the time of the pharaohs' prayers.