Statue of Heqat, the Frog Goddess (c. 2950 BCE): Art, History and Details

Statue of Heqat, the Frog Goddess (c. 2950 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

During the Predynastic period statues of animals are much more common than those of humans. This statue of a frog stands at the beginning of a great tradition of animal sculpture in Egyptian art. The sculptor has shown great sensitivity to the natural banding of the stone, using it to enhance the roundness of the animal's form. Small frogs, mostly of faience, are among the most common votive offerings deposited at early temple sites. The frog's exact religious significance in the Predynastic period is unknown, but in later times it was most often identified with Heqat, the goddess who assisted at childbirth.

Object facts

• Title: Statue of Heqat, the Frog Goddess
• Date: c. 2950 BCE
• Culture: Egypt, Predynastic (5000–2950 BCE), Naqada III (3200–3000 BCE)–Egypt, Early Dynastic (2950–2647 BCE), Dynasty 1
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: travertine (Egyptian alabaster)
• Dimensions: Overall: 15.4 x 14.7 x 15.5 cm (6 1/16 x 5 13/16 x 6 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Egypt - Predynastic
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1976.5

A detail from the museum

This probably represents a puffed-up Bufo viridis, one of two types of "frogs" (it is actually a toad) represented in Egyptian art.

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cooney, John D. “An Early Dynastic Statue of the Goddess Heqat.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63, no. 7 (1976).
• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1976.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 64, no. 2 (1977).
• La Chronique des Arts, supplement a la Gazette des Beaux-Arts 89, no. 1298 (March 1977)

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.