For a painter, the palette is an indispensable tool, and it is like the meaning of a weapon to a warrior for a painter. There are two famous palettes in ancient Egypt, which were not only the treasures of "painters", but also the treasures of ancient Egyptian archaeologists, because they also have enigmatic "giraffes" on them! What's going on here? Let me reveal the secrets to you:
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When a work of art spans a long period of time, it is given a new identity. In ancient Egypt, there were two color palettes, which used to be tools in the hands of "painters", but now they have changed their roles and become witnesses of history. The first is the Double Dog Palette, which is now housed in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, where the text under the stands describes its past, and it was unearthed in the ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria and was made about 4,000 years ago, making it a veritable antiquity. Another palette, called the Narmai Palette, was unearthed in Herakonpolis, Egypt, and experts have a much older history, probably created 5,000 years ago, and now it has its home in the Louvre.
In fact, in ancient Egypt, the color palette was not just used for painting, in the ancient Egyptian tombs 5,000 years ago, experts found a stone palette, after studying, they were used to grind mineral pigments tools, and the latter was used to decorate the body and skin. The palette of two dogs in the Ashmolean Museum is oval in shape, with a dog-like creature on each side of the upper part, holding hands and looking quite harmonious, and the following depicts the ancient Egyptian hunting scene, which is very vivid.
The Narmai palette is even more famous, it is also a shield-shaped stone slab, reaching a height of 63 cm and about 40 cm at its widest point. Both sides of it are carved with images commemorating the unification of King Narmai. Legend has it that the founding of ancient Egypt was the exploit of Narmay, who unified upper and lower Egypt by force and established the capital Memphis. He was the first king to unify Egypt. Curiously, there are also dog-like creatures on this palette that resemble those on the double dog palette. This creature is very similar to a dog, but their necks are very long and their tails are also very long, which are not characteristics of dogs.
What's going on here? Most experts believe that this giraffe represents upper and lower Egypt, and they hold hands to symbolize the unity of upper and lower Egypt, which is supported by most people, but what is the prototype of these two giraffes? Experts have analyzed three views.
The first is the giraffe, because just looking at their necks and heads, it is very similar to giraffes, and ancient Egypt has been more than 5,000 years from modern times, whether the giraffes at that time grew like this, no one can say for sure! However, there are still many people who disagree: this obviously cannot be a giraffe, not to mention that they do not look like a deer at all, even the symbolic meaning does not make sense, experts have searched the data, and have never seen any special meaning of deer in ancient Egypt, and it is obviously absurd to use it to represent the unity of upper and lower Egypt.
Could it be a divine beast? Experts consulted a large number of prehistoric animal data and finally found a more similar creature, plesiosaur. Plesiosaurs were a long-extinct group of sea dragons, belonging to the order Dipteropoda, a taxon adapted to life in the aquatic environment, and they were large and long-necked, hence the name. But these are all the information that modern people have obtained after a lot of fossil research and continuous analysis, how could the ancient Egyptians know? So there is no credibility in this statement.
The last part of the experts believe that they are the "Yuhos" on the crown of the pharaohs, and the ancient Egyptian history books record that the patron saint of Upper Egypt is the eagle, and the patron saint of Lower Egypt is the snake, after their unification, the supreme ruler of each dynasty is called the pharaoh, the so-called "Yuhos" is actually the "divine beast" of the pharaoh, it is as if it is a mixture of eagles and snakes, which can shoot venom into the eyes of the enemy, causing burn-like pain. Legend has it that the tongue of fire spat out by "Yuhos" could destroy Pharaoh's enemies. Experts believe that the creature on the palette is YuHos.
What should have been an ordinary palette has become an elusive and mysterious treasure, is it a giraffe, a plesiosaur or a Yuhos? I am afraid that this question cannot be answered for the time being. Egyptian artifacts are always so strange and mysterious. The study of these cultural relics is of great help to us to reproduce the history of Egypt and grasp the ancient culture of Egypt, and we want to thank those hard-working archaeologists, it is their unremitting efforts that we have the possibility of exploring the unknown.
Source: 1. History of Ancient Egypt by Liu Wenpeng; published by the Commercial Press
2. "Egyptian Relief Art" by Wang Hongliang et al.; published by Liaoning Pictorial Publishing House