Khepresh

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The Khepresh crown

The Khepresh was an ancient Egyptian royal headdress. It is also known as the blue crown or war crown. New Kingdom pharaohs are often shown wearing it in battle, but it was also frequently worn in ceremonies.[1] It used to be called a war crown by many, but modern historians refrain from defining it thus.[2]

The Khepresh was made from cloth[3] or leather stained blue and was covered with small yellow sun discs. Like many other royal crowns an uraeus was fastened to its front.

History

S7
Blue Crown
"War Crown"
in hieroglyphs

The Blue Crown, or War Crown was represented in hieroglyphs.

The earliest known mention of the khepresh is on the Cairo Stela 20799 dating from the Second Intermediate Period.[4] Amenhotep III was the first king whose is known to have worn the Blue Crown, as he is the first king to be depicted doing so.[5] After Amenhotep III's reign - and particularly during the 18th and 19th Dynasties - it came into fashion and was even adopted by some pharaohs as a primary crown.[6] The crown did not disappear until the Kushite Dynasty (747 to 656 BCE), when it ceased to be depicted.[7]

During the New Kingdom, pharaohs were shown with this crown in military circumstances. However, some scholars think that the crown was also meant to evoke the divine power of the pharaoh, and was thereby worn to religiously situate kings as manifestations of gods on earth.[8]

Gallery

References

  1. ↑ e.g. Myśliwiec, Karol, Eros on the Nile, Cornell University Press 2004, p.14
  2. ↑ Kuhrt, Amélie, The Ancient Near East: C.3000-330 B.C., Taylor & Francis 1995, p.190
  3. ↑ Maisels, Charles Keith, Early Civilizations of the Old World, Routledge 2001, p.60
  4. ↑ Edwards, Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen; Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, Cyril John Gadd, The Cambridge Ancient History, Cambridge University Press 1975, p.51
  5. ↑ Myśliwiec, Karol, Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period, Brill 1985, p.27
  6. ↑ Bard, Katheryn A., Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, Routledge 1999, p.412
  7. ↑ Shaw, Ian, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press 2003, p.348
  8. ↑ Bryan, Betsy. "A 'New' Statue of Amenhotep III and the Meaning of the Khepresh Crown." The Archaeology and Art of Ancient Egypt: Studies in Honor of David O'Connor, ed. Z. Hawass and J. Richards. Cairo, 2007, p. 156-8.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to White crown.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Red crown.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pschent.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Crowns of Egyptian deities.
  • Deshret - Red Crown of Lower Egypt
  • Hedjet - White Crown of Upper Egypt
  • Pschent - Double Crown of Lower & Upper Egypt
  • Atef - Hedjet Crown with feathers identified with Osiris
  • Khepresh - Blue or War Crown also called Royal Crown
  • Uraeus - Rearing Cobra
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