This Ancient Egyptian ivory object sits in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden and is around 4000 years old (Middle Kingdom 2040-1783 BC). It is described as a ‘mouse on a snake’ is only 4.5 cm tall and 10.5 cm long, which means the details are rather tiny and the whole object would be easy to hold in one’s hand.  

The Rijksmuseum website has two entries for this particular object. The main record online describes it as a “snake with a mouse-like creature on its back”, and “probably a toy”. The mouse-like creature revolves around an axis inserted into the central area of the snake’s body. It states that “the snake, symbolizing chaos, is attacked by another animal”, and that although there may be a religious meaning to it, “it is hard to draw a clear line between play and religion.”

I have remarked on this in previous portraits, but it is always curious to me that we try to draw lines like these around the meaning of an ancient object. I suppose it is simply a way of expressing how we wish to have a clearer grasp on the object, to get to the bottom of things and extract as much information as we can. I understand the limitations of two- or three-line descriptions, but perhaps what I find a little perplexing is the wording. I think about how interesting it is to look at the way different aspects bleed into each other, mixing and swirling as we see they do in our own lives, weaving into complex and beautiful patterns, rather than focusing on separating out all the threads. I also thought again about how some of these threads are seen to provide more weight or meaning for the general public – I suppose many of us would think that “This appears to be a toy made to fiddle and have fun with” doesn’t pack the same punch as “This is an object which might represent the cunning defeat of chaos, symbolised by a snake”.

The other Rikjsmuseum website entry on this piece is included under a “Moving objects” heading. Here, we are told that these moving toys from Ancient Egypt were often found in graves (in this instance, we do not appear to have specific information on the context where this was found). With this toy, the moving mechanism enables us to turn the top animal around so that it bites the snake’s head. Interestingly, this entry states that the top animal is probably an Egyptian mongoose, which is immune to snake venom, and eats snakes and their eggs. I thought that while the shape of a mongoose seems longer than the figure on this toy (perhaps it is meant to be sitting), the proportions between both animals correspond are more mongoose+cobra than mouse+snake, and made more sense as a locally recognisable image.

I have not been able to find any more specific information regarding this piece – at least information that is freely available online. This makes sense, given that it was acquired by the museum in January 1829, and records were scarce.

I tried to acquaint myself a little with the history of the museum itself and figure out how this object came into its collection. There are many other objects with the same date of acquisition, and I saw several from Egypt. I noted that they were from different periods, so they were probably not from the same site, but were rather acquired as part of a mixed collection of ‘antiquities’ – see for instance this stele (Middle Kingdom), this stool (New Kingdom), and this papyrus (Ptolemaic), which all entered the museum collection in 1829. Online, I had no luck finding any sort of old ledgers or archives in any language stating any museum items, but I did work out that it was likely that these objects were acquired in Napoleonic times.

The Rijksmuseum was first opened in 1800, and after a couple of decades, some of the collections were moved to different locations – objects from Classical Antiquity went to a new Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. This is the collection of the Rijksmuseum von Oudheden, which was built substantially on the ‘contributions’ by one Bernardino Drovetti, who was the French Consul General in Egypt. From what I can gather, Drovetti seems to have aggressively plundered the country at leisure to sell his collection to different institutions in Europe. Here, once again, I thought about the need to drastically overhaul and rethink the role and the standing of most, if not all, of these institutions.

A surprising number of wonderful toys with moving mechanisms survive from Ancient Egypt. The British Museum has two toy mice made of ceramic and wood, both possibly from the New Kingdom period, and both with movable jaws: see this one, decorated with brownish paint, and this other one, decorated with black lines. London’s family-run Pollocks Toy Museum – a real institution and surely the inspiration for many a film set – has a similar mouse in its collection, also made of ceramic and wood. Looking at those three examples, mice with moving mouths might have been a recognisable toy type in Ancient Egypt.

The British Museum also has a fantastic Ancient Egyptian toy cat or lion (see similar movable jaw), as well as an extremely curious little wooden toy – almost exactly the same size as our mongoose & snake – which  possibly features a dog leaping over a bound human figure. The figure of the ‘dog’ also reminded me of a mongoose in shape, albeit a rather large one.

Take a look at this mongoose showing off its skills in the wild in this National Geographic video, and then imagine playing with this toy – the mongoose moves stealthily at first, and then swings to bite the snake’s head in a lightning attack! SNAP!