New Kingdom Faience Amulet of a Hare

This finely crafted turquoise faience charm is fashioned in the form of a hare. It may be a three dimensional representation of the biconsonantal hieroglyph “wn,” but it could also represent one of the many members of the Egyptian pantheon (such as the goddess Wennenet or the god Wennen). This hare is depicted with an almost leonine muscularity, especially in the treatment of the powerful looking haunches, which is all the more remarkable for the small scale on which it was carved. The execution of this sculpture in miniature would certainly have required painstaking attention to detail.