 Hi everyone and welcome to Barns Takeout, your daily serving of art. I'm Carl Walsh, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Research, Interpretation and Education here at the Barns. And today we're going to have a look at a pair of objects that are in a tray in the cabinet of the North Wall Ensemble of Room 15. And we've been to this cabinet a number of times now to have a look at different objects. And specifically, there's a lot to look at in here, which is a lot of fun. But sometimes these objects can get a little lost as well in this very busy cabinet. And the objects that we're having a look at today are these, this pair of objects right in the middle of this tray. And we've had a look at these objects before with my colleague, Kaelin Joule, who's been talking about some of the bone inlays in here. And this tray is interesting because it was purchased by Barns from an art dealer in Paris in around 1924. And as far as we know, he purchased these objects as they're presented in this tray today. And while this was bought with the label of everything in here being Egyptian, we know now that these objects actually come from mostly from much later. They probably come from the late Roman period, the early Byzantine period. And they could be, they could have been made in Egypt, but they could also be kind of made mostly anywhere in the Mediterranean at that time. But the two objects that we're looking at are actually Egyptian and they are kind of the only really confirmed Egyptian objects in this tray. And they come from roughly the periods between the New Kingdom to the Ptolemaic period, which is about 1550 to 525 BC, or the early, very early Ptolemaic period and mostly the late period. So having a look at our little objects, you can see that they are carved in the shape of human hands and kind of parts of the forearm. This one has some really nice details of even just the details of the hand. So we have the little skin in between the joints of the fingers here. And then it's very hard to see these, but there are actually just little traces of fingernails at the top here, which you wouldn't really be able to see very well in the case. And then the lower half of this object is taking a different form. We're having actually here a representation of architecture. So this is a column and we have a nice shaft at the bottom, which has a nice kind of perforation in the middle. And then we have this kind of very stylized papyrus flower at the base of the column shaft. And then we have this two-part capital. And the top part has the face of a woman with these very kind of strange animal-like ears. And then we have another, the lower part of the capital, which is in the form of a stylized papyrus flower. So we've got the little petals that are kind of interlocking here. So this is a kind of nice example of a papyriform and column head. And the mirrored pair to this is very, very similar. So we again have a mimicking of hands and then a kind of column. And again, just zooming in here, you can see some really nice details that are difficult to see in the gallery. So we go again, nice little fingernails which are depicted here. We don't seem to have the same details of the skin of the joints between the fingers and the knuckle, like we do in the other example. And then this one is significantly weathered. So there's a lot more damage to this object than the other one. So a lot of the details are a little bit obscure. But you can see that again, we have this frontal view of a woman who has again these kind of interesting animal ears. And some of the details are a little bit different here as well. Like the details of the hair fixtures are a little bit different. And the style of the carving is also a little bit different from the other one. So while these are kind of a mirrored pair in the case, they seem to be coming from different objects, even though they are so similar in form. And you can see as well that some of the details of the column capital have been lost. It was probably originally decorated in a very similar way to the other object, but we just kind of don't have a lot of that surviving. And then again, we have this little perforation at the bottom. And there are also some, there's a little bit of decoration down here too that probably is also mimicking architectural decoration like the papyrus flower that we had in the other example. So these are interesting because these are types of Egyptian musical instruments. And if we just go back to the, we go back to this example because the details are a little clearer. You can see that originally this would have been connected to another object which is actually a mirrored pair. And they would have been tied together with a bit of string down at that perforation. And this is a type of instrument that we call a clapper. It's a type of percussion instrument, which is kind of similar to modern day caskinets. And again, they're usually paired together. And the function of those instruments is that you would usually hold one in your, in a single hand and you would flick it with a movement of the wrist to produce this very sharp crisp sound of them kind of clapping together. And so the reason that these are in the form of hands and kind of parts of the arm is actually kind of replicating and mimicking the actual actions of clapping, which is I think very cute. It's a very kind of literal manifestation of a clapping instrument. And the material of these is also important. They're usually made out of bone or ivory and sometimes types of hardwoods. And these types of materials produce a really nice sound when they're kind of brought together with force. It's kind of, it goes well with music basically. So the materials are really important for this, because they have a role in the functions of the object as a musical instrument. And the female face that we see on these types of instruments is quite common. We often find depictions of this rather unusual frontal view of this woman. And frontal views are very, are very rare in Egyptian art. You usually always see people's faces in profile. And it's only really in certain cases that they use a frontal view instead, which is usually for specific types of Egyptian gods. And this is one of them. This is the goddess Hathor, who is usually depicted in, with these kind of animal-like features related to a cow. So these are kind of bovine ears. And often she will take the form of a cow, or she'll be wearing a headdress that has big cow's horns on it. So Hathor is a really important Egyptian goddess. She is kind of a goddess that's associated with joy and love and sexuality. And she's often associated with the cardinal direction of the west, which is the realm of the dead. And she also has a vengeful aspect. And she, when angered, can be kind, can transform into the lioness goddess, Sakamet, who is a goddess associated with plague and with violence. But the depiction that we have here of Hathor is relating more to her joyous aspects, and specifically to her role as the goddess of music and dance. So we often have these depictions of Hathor on types of instruments, like clappers and cistra also, which are a type of kind of rattle. And we know that these types of instruments are important to Hathor because they're often used in the, in temple cult and in the performance of ritual. And we have actual depictions of these types of instruments being used in religious festivals and processions where we have musicians who are kind of following images of the god and producing all of this kind of music to go along with the procession. And they also are objects that can potentially be used in everyday contexts too. So they are used for just music as enjoyment, as relaxation and entertainment, particularly for members of the elite and royalty, where in tomb depictions we often have images of these types of musical instruments being played while there are audiences of members of the elite, members of the royal court, who are kind of often in these kind of banquet scenes where they're enjoying food and drink, and listening to music and looking at dances who are performing to the music that's being played. So these are definitely things that are also used in daily life as just kind of forms of entertainment and relaxation for people. And again this is kind of good to remember because so much of the Egyptian art that we have in the bronze collection is not of daily use. It's things that are used in tombs, it's things that are put on temple walls that have restricted audiences and restricted uses. And we have very few objects that are actually things that were handled and held and used by everyday people in ancient Egypt. So this is a really nice example of a type of object that was actually not only a piece of art but something that was part of people's daily experience and life as well. So next time that you're in the gallery have a look at these little clappers which are in this case and think about kind of some of those aspects that I was talking about and how these are personal objects that will be used by people. So that's it for today's Barnes Takeout. I hope you enjoyed it and if you haven't already please do subscribe to our channel to get your serving of art and leave a comment. We really enjoy reading and responding to these so please take care and stay safe.