The Battlefield Palette (also known as the Vultures Palette, the Giraffes Palette, or the Lion Palette) is the earliest "battle scene" representation of the dozen or more "ceremonial" or "ornamental" cosmetic palettes of ancient Egypt. Along with the others in this series of palettes, including the Narmer Palette, it includes some of the first representations of the figures, or glyphs, that became Egyptian hieroglyphs. Most notable on the Battlefield Palette is the standard (iat hieroglyph), and Man-prisoner (hieroglyph), probably the forerunner that gave rise to the concept of the Nine Bows (representation of foreign tribal enemies).
The palettes probably date mostly from the Naqada III or Protodynastic Period of Egypt (circa ~3500 to 3000 BC). The two major pieces of the Battlefield Palette are held by the British and Ashmolean Museums.
The Battlefield Palette obverse contains the circular defined area for the mixing of a 'cosmetic'; the archaeological forerunner palettes, the Rhomboidal palettes, were without circular-defined mixing regions. It contains the battlefield scene, and forerunners of hieroglyphs: prisoner, tribal-territory wooden standard, the horus-falcon bird-resting on standard, and the ibis bird-(resting on standard). The fractured lower half of the prisoner on the obverse right may have a hieroglyph at his front-(the rectangle, as rounded for land) with suspected papyrus plants attached on top.
The reverse of the palette has dramatically stylized versions of a 'bird', two "antelope-like" mammals, and a vertical 'palm-tree' trunk and partial top with fruits, and short horizontal palm fronds.
Palette reverse
British Museum site
