amuletsCippus of Horus
said SIP-us, plural cippi, from the Latin for a small pillar or marker
also: magical stela · healing stela · Horus on the Crocodiles · Horus stela · Horus cippus
amuletAncient EgyptEgyptconfidence mediumneeds checking
A slab of stone carved with the child Horus standing on two crocodiles, gripping snakes and scorpions in his fists, and often an antelope by the horns and a lion by the tail. Rows of hieroglyphs cover the rest of it. Sizes run from house-sized stelae down to amulets small enough to carry: the Metternich Stela is one block of greywacke about 35.8 inches tall and 13.25 wide, and the Metropolitan Museum also holds a miniature.
citedLatin cippus, a small pillar or boundary stone — an archaeologist's borrowing, not an Egyptian word for the object.
Museums also label the class 'Horus on the Crocodiles' after what is carved on the front. cited
When
c. 1069 BCE – 30 BCE cited
| Period | Third Intermediate Period to the end of Ptolemaic Egypt |
|---|---|
| How the date is known | inscribed — the object carries its own date |
| Note | The class span is the source's 'from the Third Intermediate Period until the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty'. The Third Intermediate Period opens when the New Kingdom closes, c. 1069 BCE, a figure taken from s:wp-taweret; the Ptolemaic dynasty ends in 30 BCE. Both conversions are this project's arithmetic on the source's period names. The Metternich Stela itself is dated 380–342 BCE by s:wp-metternich-stela. |
Years are stored astronomically — 1 CE is 1, 1 BCE is 0, 500 BCE is −499 — and printed the way a reader says them. How these dates are made.
The thing itself
| Form | Plaque or tablet |
|---|---|
| Made of | Earth and ash |
| Goes | On a wall · At the neck |
| Made by | temple workshops; the rites over it were recited by priests |
| It says | spells against venomous bites and stings and the illnesses they cause — the Metternich Stela carries thirteen, including the story of Isis and the Seven Scorpions (Egyptian hieroglyphic) |
| Length | 909 mm |
| Colour | grey-green |
| Retired | no — it is kept |
| Note | 909 mm converts the source's published 35.8 inches for the Metternich Stela; the width it gives is 13.25 inches. That is one object, and the class runs down to amulet size. Greywacke, the stone the Metternich Stela is cut from, has no key in materials.json. |
What its carriers say it stops
Reported, attributed, not tested here. Each row below is somebody's claim, with their name on it.
- Snakes and scorpions citedsaid by the spells cut on the stela itself, as summarised by the Metropolitan Museum's Wikipedia entry: 'thirteen magic spells to protect against venomous bites and wounds and to cure the illnesses caused by them'
- Dangerous animals citedsaid by the carving — Horus holds a lion by the tail and an antelope by the horns while standing on two crocodiles
- Illness — sickness in general, where no cause is named citedsaid by the instructions on the cippi, which the source says were used to heal afflictions caused by snake or scorpion venom
The story
This is an amulet you drink. The instruction is on the object: water is poured over the carved spells and the carved figures, collected at the base, and given to the person who has been bitten or stung, to swallow or to wash the wound with. The words come off the stone into the water. Priests recited alongside.
The Metternich Stela is the fullest of them. It dates to about 380–342 BCE, the Thirtieth Dynasty, under Nectanebo II, and it carries thirteen spells against venomous bites and wounds and against the illnesses they cause — including the story of Isis and the Seven Scorpions, which is among the most complete versions found on any monument. The logic is precedent: Horus as a child was stung in the marshes at Khemmis and was cured, and the spell puts the patient in the child's place.
It disappeared for two thousand years and turned up in a wall excavated in a Franciscan monastery. Muhammad Ali Pasha gave it to Prince Metternich in 1828; it sat at Kynžvart Castle in Bohemia until 1950, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired it.
The class runs from the Third Intermediate Period to the end of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt. Not all of them are museum monuments — some are amulet-sized, and the same image of Horus on the crocodiles is carried. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo holds the healing statue of Djedhor, the Louvre a Priest of Bastet statue, and the Brooklyn Museum another cippus; Keith Seele, Robert Ritner and Jane Draycott have written on them.
Inference — an amulet that is used up by being washed is a different kind of object from one that is worn, and it puts this stone closer to an Ethiopian scroll read aloud, or to a Qur'anic bowl rinsed and drunk, than to the faience beetle in the next tray.
How it is made and carried
Carved in stone with the Horus figure on the front and the spells around it. Water is poured over it, caught, and drunk or applied to the body by the person suffering the poisoning, with rites recited by priests. The large ones stay where they stand; the small ones are carried.
Now
Not in use. Cippi are museum objects — the Metropolitan Museum shows them at The Met Fifth Avenue, and the Brooklyn Museum, the Louvre and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo hold others. As of 2026 this project has read no account of water being poured over one for a patient.
Where you can see one
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art — the Metternich Stela, acquired in 1950, and a miniature cippus
- Musée du Louvre — the Priest of Bastet statue, named by the source among the well-documented examples
- The Egyptian Museum — the Djedhor healing statue
An accession number appears here only where it was read off a catalogue page that is linked. No link, no number.
What this is near
What names this one
Each in its own words, from its own page.
Where this came from
- Horus on the Crocodiles — Wikipedia read 2026-09-16
- Metternich Stela — Wikipedia read 2026-09-16
- Taweret — Wikipedia read 2026-09-16
- Eye of Horus — Wikipedia read 2026-09-16
- Metropolitan Museum of Art — Wikipedia read 2026-09-16
Elsewhere
Record updated 2026-09-16. This record as JSON. Every field carries its own provenance; the tier chips above say which.