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Sokar-hawks

W2005

This is a wooden Sokar-hawk which can be seen in the ‘God’s case’ in the Egypt Centre. You can find others in the Egypt Centre by the Ba-birds. We also have one on loan from Woking College.

Sometimes miniature falcons, probably Sokar hawks, were put on the base of Ptah-Sokar-Osiris figures. The falcons seem to be crouching, perhaps indicating that were mummified. Alternatively they may be depicted this way to suggest that they are covered like the image of a god. Some, such as EC232, are covered in a rhomboid pattern like mummies. Statues of gods in temples were ritually dressed.  

From the New Kingdom onward the festival of Sokar was celebrated at Thebes, though it is in the form of Ptah-Sokar-Osiris that the god is perhaps best known. 

 

Originally Sokar seems to have been associated with Ptah at Memphis. Both Sokar and Ptah were gods of craftsmen. By the Old Kingdom, Sokar was also associated with Osiris and thus had become a funerary god. In the Pyramid Texts he is called ‘creator of royal bones’. By the Middle Kingdom the god Ptah-Sokar was worshipped, and in later periods Osiris was added to the group.

 

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