Two Falcons
Egypt, Ptolemaic period (304-30 B.C.)
stone

Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Freer's purchases in Cairo in 1909 included "two great stone Hawks which would nobly defend my little group of Egyptian art when permanently housed." The "hawks" are these two falcons, reportedly from a temple near Alexandria in the Nile Delta.

An important image of kingship, the falcon was the symbol of the Egyptian god Horus, whose earthly embodiment was the pharoah. The heads of the sculptures preserve the remains of an attachment for a headdress, probably the double crown symbolizing rule over both northern and southern Egypt.

The Greek inscriptions on the front of the bases mention the names of the Greek deities Herakles and Aphrodite.