Gefäß in Gestalt eines Frosches

Description

The common depiction of the frog in the early Egyptian period (3050-2850 BC) shows the animal crouching in an erect, tense posture, with its head raised ready to pounce. In this small sculpture, the frog – perhaps also a toad – is depicted in a resting position flat on the ground. Perhaps the explanation for the animal’s posture can be found in this piece’s function: the crouched body gave the artist the opportunity to hollow out the frog from the back as a vessel. The large opening was originally closed by a flat lid; the vessel probably served to store a cosmetic product. The large, hemispherical eyes are also deeply hollowed to accommodate different coloured inlays, which must have given the animal a very lively expression. As a characteristic of the early period, the legs on the underside of the animal’s body are executed in strong relief.

The large number of frogs living in the papyrus thicket of the Nile had made the image of the tadpole the numeral sign for »100.000«; in historical times the frog-headed goddess Heket was seen as a helper in childbirth. However, the large number of early representations of frogs, for example, in the form of small faience figures found in temple repositories, indicates that the significance of a deity embodied in the form of a frog was much greater at that time than later in the dynastic period.