This carved falcon from ancient Egypt is associated with two gods, Ptah (the creator god) and Osiris (the god of the dead), and is often written as Ptah-Sokar or Ptah-Sokar-Osiris.
This particular carving is from the Late Period (664-332 BCE), right before the Greeks’ conquest of Egypt. The museum also has falcon mummies, which were given at temples as votive offerings by pilgrims.
Deb Harding is a collection manager in Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Section of Anthropology. She frequently blogs and shares pieces of the museum’s hidden anthropology collection, which is home to over 100,000 ethnological and historical specimens and 1.5 million archaeological artifacts.
