Comb
Predynastic Period, ca. 3200 B.C.
Ivory, h. 2 1/4 in.
Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915
30.8.224

This comb may have been part of the funeral equipment of someone who lived about 5,200 years ago. Parts of the comb's teeth, now missing, can be seen along the bottom edge. The detailed decoration suggests that the comb belonged to an elite person and was more a ceremonial object than just an instrument to arrange the hair. On both sides of the ivory handle there are profile figures of animals in horizontal rows, a spatial organization familiar from all later Egyptian art.

On the side pictured in this image, elephants appear to be walking on top of giant snakes. In the second row a stork with a snake under its beak leads a giraffe followed by three more storks, and a heron or crane. A line of dogs or jackals moves across the center row. In the fourth row are cattle or wild bulls, and in the bottom row another line of dogs or perhaps pigs.

Notice how the animals change direction in each row, creating the impression that they are moving in a long parade that twists back and forth. This arrangement of figures is not, as a rule, found in later Egyptian art. The creatures are all in profile, however, which is the typical point of view for depicting animals in dynastic Egyptian art. Elephants treading on snakes suggest that this part of the scene was symbolic. The mythologies of many African peoples associate elephants and serpents with the creation of the universe. The uppermost row of this comb may symbolize a creative deity to whom the rest of the animals owe their existence.

Notice: types of animals, material, arrangement, point of view

Discuss: function, possible interpretations

Compare: View of Luxor looking west across the Nile, Ivory hunting dog, Hippopotamus, and Section from a Book of the Dead

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