What is on Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu's head?
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During the adoration from the stele paraphrase, after doing Resh, I am trying to see myself in Ankh-f-n-khonsu's place on the stele in relation to the other characters when it comes to "I am thy Theban, O Mentu..." etc. But one thing is giving me trouble in visualising the scene: What is on his head? Is it a tiny hat? That is what it looks most like to me, but then how could such a tiny hat stay on a bald guys head? It would fall right off! Is it some sort of undercut top knot? Whatever it is, is there some sort of other instance of one for me to see? When people make reproductions they often render it as a triangle/cone, but it doesn't look like that in images of the original that I have seen.
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@HA86 said
"What is on his head? Is it a tiny hat?"
Yes. Exactly. It doesn't quite look like the familiar Thai temple hats, but it's kinda the same thing.
"but then how could such a tiny hat stay on a bald guys head?"
It appears to be fitted, like a skull cap or the sort I mentioned above, so that it is molded to stay.
"Whatever it is, is there some sort of other instance of one for me to see?"
Great question. I've never looked it up or tried to track it down. Others may have the Egyptological lore. (Alice, are you listening?)
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Clare Gibson's Hidden Life of Ancient Egypt has several pictures of people wearing incense cones on their heads (though she isn't clear about what keeps them from falling off). None of them look quite like the green whatsit on Ankh-af-na-khonsu's head. She says, "Well-to-do ancient Egyptians wore blocks of solidified, fragrant incense in this way on both festive and solemn significant occasions."
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I am not sure that it is supposed to be green or a cone; in the original it doesn't look like a cone and it looks to be the same color as his collar, and somewhere between the color on Hadit's wings and Nuit's face, though it is difficult to tell from the state of the stele. Also, I had never heard of those incense hat thingies, so I had to look them up, and I agree --- as far as I can tell they do not look to be the same; though I suppose it could be a variant.