Bes (Aegyptiaca Kestneriana)

This volume treats the world's first exhibition on Bes, shown in the Egyptian collections in Amsterdam, Hanover and Copenhagen. Over the course of its extraordinary, 2000-year-long "career", this Ancient Egyptian divine creature transformed from friendly household demon to the "head of all gods" and eventually into a universally popular patron deity for the entire Roman world. As a result, both its character and the ways in which Bes is depicted are highly varied. This variability is documented in the volume's numerous illustrations, which mostly present hitherto unpublished museum pieces to both a scholarly audience and the broader public. A substantial introductory chapter serves as an entry point into the material by comparing two demons / divinities, Bes and Thoeris / Taweret, who were both originally associated with Egyptian domestic contexts, but later followed very different trajectories.