An unusual iconography of Osiris: The bronze statuette Petrie Museum UC 8033

Among the wide collection of the bronze figurines preserved at the Petrie Museum, UC 8033 represents Osiris with an iconography rarely attested: the representation on the back of a falcon with a sun disc and with wings wrapping the body of the figure. Unfortunately, the figurine is unprovenanced and no other information are preserved in the museum. This paper presents also five other Osiris figurines (1- BM EA 24718; 2- Brooklyn Museum, inv. no. 39.93; 3- MMA 56.16.2; 4- CG 38270; 5- Statuette from a private collection – unknown location –), which show close parallels in iconography, design, and composition with UC 8033. Furthermore, the peculiar iconography of the falcon on the back is not exclusively used for Osiris, but it is in use also for other statuettes, mainly representing goddesses, such as Neith and Isis, and high social rank women, such as the famous statue of Karomama (Louvre N 500). The chronological range of UC 8033 seems to be circumscribed to the time between the Third Intermediate Period and the early Twenty-six Dynasty.