Vulture Goddesses and Ancestral Women

 

Several Kemetic statuettes of goddesses with vulture-shaped heads and upraised arms are known from about 4200-3400 bce.

 

The ceramic goddesses above and at right are very similar but if you look carefully, you'll see many small differences. Like the painted pots...

 

Yet another example of the invocational gesture.

 

Front and back views of another invoking figurine, with painted signs and animals.

Invocational figure in a different style, in bone or wood.

 

This Amratian period statuette bears traces of red ochre. Right: this Badarian period figurine is richly coated in ochre, and her silhouette with legs shown in a single mass

 

compares to some of those painted on the ceramic vessels, and to many other figurines in neolithic Egypt and Sudan.