RAFFMA, EG.02.001.2020
Extremely aggressive in the wild, male hippos were feared and female hippos admired for the tenacious protection of their offspring. As a grave good, it is not clear what the purpose of small statuettes of hippos like this was exactly. They could have been intended to be magical protectors for the deceased’s body against harm. Otherwise the Nilotic plants and other watery motifs depicted on them and the common blue color may invoke the Nile flood, a natural event that the Ancient Egyptians attributed a strong ritual power to. This may then have been intended to help sympathetically in the process of resurrecting the deceased by giving them a sort of jolt of natural energy.
https://www.csusb.edu/raffma/art/detail?objectId=2244578&size=0
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