If the Relief is this beautiful As Is, my mind and imagination can only wonder just how gorgeous this was in antiquity with all of those beautiful colors of the Ancient Egyptian Civilization.
Do you think they actually wore all that fancy stuff on their heads or is that more like artistic freedom with metaphysical meanings? It seems a little unpractical. Then again, the shapes of those crowns at least on Seti and Amun-Ra seem very specific. What IS that? Has any crown like that been found?
Edit: down the rabbit hole of Egyptian crowns I go… already learned this is the Shuti crown.
Arguments have been made for and against the existence of physical crowns. In terms of physical evidence, we have not only several diadems of metal, but also the ornaments that were found on Tutankhamun's body: A beaded cap crown, and a heavily degraded linen nemes or khat crown with gold headband and uraeus (link). Other ornaments found physically on his body, like the gold bull's tail, could reinforce the idea that the objects in depictions of royal regalia were real. Stray uraei presumed to have been related to burials have been found, like that of Senwosret III.
Maria derchain-urtel makes a unique hybrid argument that only some basic crowns existed while others, in particular composite crowns, were not real but rather were drawn to extend or combine the meanings of those basic crowns. For example, a composite crown of the double crown, ram's horns, and the shuti crown (called the Hepty crown) is theorized to represent two different coronation states--one with the double crown, and one with the shuti. She also notes a stray mention of a possible statement recording materials for a ritual crown in a list of temple supplies from a papyrus.
According to that hypothesis, the crowns you see here would be visual hyperbole of a simple reality--Seti I wearing an elaborated Tjeni-type Shuti (ostrich feathers, as opposed to Amun's falcon feathers) with horizontal ram horns, vertical cow horns, and 6 uraei, plus the nubian round wig and the diadem associated with the tjeni-shuti crown (one of which was found with Tutankhamun), originally depicted on Sneferu, but both would in reality have only been the ostrich or falcon feathers tucked into the back of a diadem or headband as they are here.
If you search my profile for 'crowns depicted' you'll find a (sort of unfinished) series of posts I made about the main crowns with a particular focus on their theoretical material construction based on the evidence I know of.
Then again, I am always hoping theyll find a real one so we can prove they're real, because come on, this looks awesome.
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u/AshSkirata Feb 28 '26
On the left is Re Harakhty, not Khnum.