Sekhmet Statue (Table Flair)
Sekhmet Statue (Table Flair)
O mighty Sekhmet, whose fury burns divine,
Your Lions bear your wrath into the fray,
While gentle Retharans wield your healing light,
Bringing hope where battle’s shadows lay.
Sekhmet is the goddess of healing and destruction (TKK, page 129). Like so much in ancient Egypt, she embodies ma’at—the principle of balance. Destruction is paired with healing, and healing with destruction.
She is one of my favorite goddesses and features prominently in Keshanar City as the colossal reclining statue resting above the Necropolis of Kings.
This miniature nicely adorns a temple encounter, adding a touch of historically inspired atmosphere to your table. And, as is the case with so many things in Keshanar, it comes with a story.
Statues like this can be found throughout Egypt. We can finger about 600 of them now but Pharaoh Amenhotep III may originally have commissioned as many as 730 of them—one seated and one standing Sekhmet for every day of the year.
In December 2024, I was traveling with friends and team members on the Keshanar Discovery Tour of Egypt, conducting research for the setting. Egyptian guides enjoy steering tourists into local shops because they receive a commission—which is fair enough. I knew the routine and had absolutely no intention of buying heavy stone carvings when our guide took us to an alabaster shop in Luxor. Alabaster shops on the West Bank of the Nile are like Starbucks in downtown Seattle: they are everywhere.
I had been to this particular shop before, on another trip with another guide. Nevertheless, I played along so my friends could see the wares.
Then, standing defiantly outside the shop, I came face-to-face with a beautiful, anatomically perfect, full-sized rendition of a seated Sekh met in Aswan granite…and fell in love.
Ahmed, the owner, came out to greet us, offering tea and hospitality in the finest Egyptian and Islamic tradition.
Dave: “Excuse me—do you take American Express?”
Ahmed: “Of course. Come in and have some tea.”
Dave: “How much is she? I must have her.”
(Note my excellent negotiating tactics here.)
Ahmed: “My grandfather made that. It’s not really for sale. But come, have some tea.”
Dave: “Name your price.”
(Seriously, I could give a Ted Talk on how to haggle)
It actually took a while to convince Ahmed that I was serious. Of course I had to have this thing. I mean, LOOK AT IT!
As the saying goes, “American Express talks and Apis-crap walks and a few cups of tea and the approximate equivalent of a home-improvement loan later, I was the proud owner of a 1.25-ton Aswan-granite statue of Sekhmet. However, she was not technically in my possession yet. ”I figured that if the statue never arrived, I could contest the charge and American Express might cover me—after they finished laughing.
You only live once, after all (unless the Phoenix chooses you).
If and when she did arrive in North Carolina, surely it would take most of a year or more. After all, the only sensible way to ship something like this is, well…by ship.
Three weeks later, I received a call from DHL.
DHL Dude: “Uhhh…we have a very large and very heavy crate for you. We’re delivering it today. Sorry it took so long, but we needed a special truck—its 1.25-tons, which is too heavy for our lift gates.”
For reasons I still do not entirely understand, Ahmed had to EXPRESS-MAIL her to me. To his immense credit, doing so cost him three times what we had allocated for shipping, and he did it anyway, without asking for more money. This partially accounted for my really, really, bad haggling.
So now I have 1.25 tonnes of divine wrath sitting in my driveway. My ultimate plan is to place her in the new Orthane Productions Studio I am slowly building. At least there is little danger of anyone stealing her—unless they arrive in my yard with a crane.
It has occurred to me, however, that thousands of years from now, if Western civilization falls and future archaeologists excavate the ancient ruins of my studio, this statue will almost certainly fuel the very conspiracy theories I am constantly trying to debunk:
“SEE! The ancient Egyptians WERE aliens! How else could they have moved THIS from Luxor to friggin’ Hillsborough, North Carolina?!”
(The figurine also comes in black)
Dimensions: 3.5" tall
O mighty Sekhmet, whose fury burns divine,
Your Lions bear your wrath into the fray,
While gentle Retharans wield your healing light,
Bringing hope where battle’s shadows lay.
Sekhmet is the goddess of healing and destruction (TKK, page 129). Like so much in ancient Egypt, she embodies ma’at—the principle of balance. Destruction is paired with healing, and healing with destruction.
She is one of my favorite goddesses and features prominently in Keshanar City as the colossal reclining statue resting above the Necropolis of Kings.
This miniature nicely adorns a temple encounter, adding a touch of historically inspired atmosphere to your table. And, as is the case with so many things in Keshanar, it comes with a story.
Statues like this can be found throughout Egypt. We can finger about 600 of them now but Pharaoh Amenhotep III may originally have commissioned as many as 730 of them—one seated and one standing Sekhmet for every day of the year.
In December 2024, I was traveling with friends and team members on the Keshanar Discovery Tour of Egypt, conducting research for the setting. Egyptian guides enjoy steering tourists into local shops because they receive a commission—which is fair enough. I knew the routine and had absolutely no intention of buying heavy stone carvings when our guide took us to an alabaster shop in Luxor. Alabaster shops on the West Bank of the Nile are like Starbucks in downtown Seattle: they are everywhere.
I had been to this particular shop before, on another trip with another guide. Nevertheless, I played along so my friends could see the wares.
Then, standing defiantly outside the shop, I came face-to-face with a beautiful, anatomically perfect, full-sized rendition of a seated Sekh met in Aswan granite…and fell in love.
Ahmed, the owner, came out to greet us, offering tea and hospitality in the finest Egyptian and Islamic tradition.
Dave: “Excuse me—do you take American Express?”
Ahmed: “Of course. Come in and have some tea.”
Dave: “How much is she? I must have her.”
(Note my excellent negotiating tactics here.)
Ahmed: “My grandfather made that. It’s not really for sale. But come, have some tea.”
Dave: “Name your price.”
(Seriously, I could give a Ted Talk on how to haggle)
It actually took a while to convince Ahmed that I was serious. Of course I had to have this thing. I mean, LOOK AT IT!
As the saying goes, “American Express talks and Apis-crap walks and a few cups of tea and the approximate equivalent of a home-improvement loan later, I was the proud owner of a 1.25-ton Aswan-granite statue of Sekhmet. However, she was not technically in my possession yet. ”I figured that if the statue never arrived, I could contest the charge and American Express might cover me—after they finished laughing.
You only live once, after all (unless the Phoenix chooses you).
If and when she did arrive in North Carolina, surely it would take most of a year or more. After all, the only sensible way to ship something like this is, well…by ship.
Three weeks later, I received a call from DHL.
DHL Dude: “Uhhh…we have a very large and very heavy crate for you. We’re delivering it today. Sorry it took so long, but we needed a special truck—its 1.25-tons, which is too heavy for our lift gates.”
For reasons I still do not entirely understand, Ahmed had to EXPRESS-MAIL her to me. To his immense credit, doing so cost him three times what we had allocated for shipping, and he did it anyway, without asking for more money. This partially accounted for my really, really, bad haggling.
So now I have 1.25 tonnes of divine wrath sitting in my driveway. My ultimate plan is to place her in the new Orthane Productions Studio I am slowly building. At least there is little danger of anyone stealing her—unless they arrive in my yard with a crane.
It has occurred to me, however, that thousands of years from now, if Western civilization falls and future archaeologists excavate the ancient ruins of my studio, this statue will almost certainly fuel the very conspiracy theories I am constantly trying to debunk:
“SEE! The ancient Egyptians WERE aliens! How else could they have moved THIS from Luxor to friggin’ Hillsborough, North Carolina?!”
(The figurine also comes in black)
Dimensions: 3.5" tall
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