Hunters Palette

Hunters Palette
Hunters Palette with pieces connected
Material	Schist
Size	c. 66 cm x 26 cm
Created	31st century BC (circa)
Present location	British Museum, Louvre
Identification	British Museum, EA 20790, EA 20792, Louvre E 11254

The Hunters Palette or Lion Hunt Palette is a c. 3100 BCE cosmetic palette from the Naqada III period of late prehistoric Egypt. The palette is broken: part is held by the British Museum and part is in the collection of the Louvre.

The Hunters Palette shows a complex iconography of lion hunting as well as the hunt of other animals such as birds, desert hares, and gazelle types; one gazelle is being contained by a rope. The weapons used in the twenty-man hunt are the bow and arrow, mace, throwing sticks, flint knives, and spears. Two iconographic conjoined bull-forefronts adorn the upper right alongside a hieroglyphic-like symbol similar to the "shrine" hieroglyph, sḥ.

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  Louvre fragment showing various weapons
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  Hunters Palette, details, especially a lion's body with arrows.
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  Hunters detail
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  Drawing of a hunter.
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  Drawing of a hunter.
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  Drawing of a hunter.
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  Drawing of a hunter.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shrine (hieroglyph).

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hunters Palette.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ancient Egyptian palettes.

• List of ancient Egyptian palettes

• British Museum page on the Palette
• Photo of Hunters Palette
• Predynastic palette corpus
• the Louvre fragment