Sayala Mace

The Sayala - lobe ( also Seyala - lobe) is made ​​of wood and stone ceremonial mace goldüberzogenem from the Predynastic period ( Naqada IIIa, around 3200 BC) Egyptian history. It was in 1910/11 found by Cecil Mallaby Firth in unternubischen Sayala and then came into the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where it was stolen but 1920. Your fate is unknown. The lobe is known primarily for their detailed depictions of animals

Fund history

The club was found by Cecil Mallaby Firth during the excavation campaign in 1910/11 in 1 grave of the cemetery 137 in Sayala ( Nubia ). The grave, in which a local prince was buried probably, was found looted, but still contained numerous grave goods that were pushed together in a corner of the tomb. These included stone and ceramic vessels, a lion's head made ​​of rose quartz, cosmetic palettes, copper chisels and hatchets, and the remains of two ceremonial clubs. From the splendor of the heads of clubs or rose quartz breccia were received and the gold coatings of the past wooden handles. Both coatings exhibited in its lower part on a horizontal ribbing. A coating had otherwise no further embellishment, while that of the Sayala lobe had performed detailed depictions of animals ( see below).

The grave and its contents have been made known in 1911 by Firth in a first preliminary report. In this he also published a first drawing of the leg. For a detailed description, which included photographs, but was not published until 1927. Meanwhile, the Sayala lobe had been stolen in 1920 from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Decor

The upper portion of the handle was peripherally decorated with depictions of animals. At the top an elephant was depicted, which tramples two serpents; However, this interpretation is not undisputed. Below you find a giraffe, a saddle-billed stork, several Bovidae and predators, including a lion and a leopard. The club thus belongs to a larger group negadezeitlicher art objects, on which animal series are shown. At present, however, no other club with comparable decoration is known. Among the objects with animal ranks of the handle of a comb ( Davis Crest) as well as several knife handles ( including, for example, Brooklyn knife handle, Carnarvon knife handle, Pitt- Rivers knife handle, Gebel -el- tariff knife, knife from Gebel el- Arak ).