Bes

Gegenstand des Buches ist die weltweit erste, in den Ägyptischen Sammlungen von Amsterdam, Hannover und Kopenhagen gezeigte Ausstellung über Bes. Dieses göttliche Wesen der Alten Ägypter hat innerhalb von ca. 2000 Jahren die erstaunliche "Karriere" vom freundlichen Hausdämon zum "Kopf aller Götter" und zum allseits beliebten Schutzgott in der gesamten römischen Welt absolviert. Entsprechend facettenreich ist nicht nur sein Wesen, sondern auch die Art seiner Darstellung. Dieser Vielfalt werden die zahlreichen Abbildungen im Buch gerecht, die im Wesentlichen bis dato unveröffentlichte Museumsstücke sowohl dem Fachpublikum als auch den Ausstellungsbesuchern präsentieren. Ein langes Kapitel führt in die Materie ein, in dem die zwei ursprünglich dem gleichen häuslichen Umfeld der Ägypter entstammenden Dämonen / Gottheiten Bes und Thoeris, die dann jedoch einen ganz anderen Werdegang genommen haben, miteinander verglichen werden.

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 This variability is documented in the volume's numerous illustrations, which mostly present hitherto unpublished museum pieces to both a scholarly audience and the broader public.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.
 
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 This variability is documented in the volume's numerous illustrations, which mostly present hitherto unpublished museum pieces to both a scholarly audience and the broader public.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.