Heh

Here, we see the claws leaning against two palm branches that are held by a kneeling bearded figure with a tadpole hanging from his arm. This figure is a god called Heh. He is kneeling on a base bar with zigzag lines.

Heh was the personification of infinity, mostly with the temporal meaning of eternity. As you can see in Figure 3, the figure of Heh was also used in hieroglyphs, for example as the sign for ‘a million’. Heh was associated with the idea of millions of years, and the figure of Heh was used to express the wish of millions of years of life or rule. Because of this, he is frequently depicted in amulets and in royal iconography. See: Wilkinson, Richard H., The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient
Egypt (New York, 2003). You can see an example of such an amulet in Figure 4.

Heh is depicted in human form, with a wig and beard that identify him as a god. He is usually kneeling with each hand clutching a notched palm branch. The zigzag lines on the base bar of the pectoral where Heh is kneeling, represent the primordial waters out of which the primeval hill - the first land - emerged at the beginning of time. See: Patch, Diana C., [Pectoral of Princess Sithathoryunet] (http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1291919726) (New York, 2015), 114–15. The branches, which you can see here as well, were used for ceremonial time- and record keeping in temples. That is why they were used as the hieroglyph for ‘years’. Sometimes a palm branch is also placed on the god’s head, which you can see in Figure 3. In detailed representations the palm branches were also given additional elements, like the tadpole hieroglyph for ‘100,000’. You can see the tadpole on the pectoral, hanging from the arm of Heh. See: Wilkinson, Richard H., The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (New York, 2003).

So, we have looked at the front of the pectoral and have seen many symbolic details. Time to turn the pectoral over to look at the back, and find out more about the practical aspects.