Bes, the Mr. Popular among the deities

Not shown in this necklace is his body. Bes is often depicted as a dwarf with short legs and arms and a chubby belly (Fig. 6). Sometimes, he may hold certain attributes, such as serpents, musical instruments or weapons (Fig. 7 & Fig. 8). All these features contribute to a rather scary image of Bes, but this hideous appearance did not make him any less popular. See: Van Oppen De Ruiter, Branko F. ‘Lovely Ugly Bes! Animalistic Aspects in Ancient Egyptian Popular Religion’. Arts 9, no. 2 (2020): 51–86.

Bes was extremely popular in Egypt (Fig. 9). His popularity expanded especially from the New Kingdom into the Greco-Roman period, but Bes was also worshipped in Predynastic times. Bes cannot be defined as one singular thing or deity. Many different traits and aspects are incorporated into his identity. This made Bes highly suitable for popular religious beliefs. For example, Bes was seen as the protector of children and pregnant women, and at the same time he was a guardian of the sun god Re. His scary demonic features warded off bad influences and with his knives and weapons he fought against evil as a bestial creature. Simultaneously, Bes was considered a musician, a dancer, and maybe even a ‘partygoer’. Thus, his identity was drenched with ambiguity.See: Van Oppen De Ruiter, Branko F. ‘Lovely Ugly Bes! Animalistic Aspects in Ancient Egyptian Popular Religion’. Arts 9, no. 2 (2020): 51–86.

All these different aspects and dualities made Bes a very approachable apotropaic deity, one that provided welfare for both commoners and the elite.See: Abdi, Kamyar. ‘Bes in the Achaemenid Empire’. Ars Orientalis 29 (1999): 111–40. Because of this identity, Bes travelled across borders into areas interacting with Egypt. For instance, images of him were found in Cyprus and the Levant (Fig. 10).See: Wilson, Veronica. ‘The Iconography of Bes with Particular Reference to the Cypriot Evidence’. Levant 7, no. 1 (1975): 77–103. However, the Bes-image hardly pervaded any further than the borders of the Levant. Only after the establishment of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, this began to change. The Persians paid much attention to trade and trade routes and expanded them. Since Egyptians could now access this area more easily, Bes-images found their way into all the different regions united under the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Images of Bes are even found in ‘kurgans’, a type of grave monument in Pazyryk, Russia (!) (Fig. 11 & Fig. 12). The journey of Bes to Iran must have been one of the steps leading up to this widespread expansion.See: Rubinson, Karen S. ‘The Textiles from Pazyryk’. Expedition Magazine Penn Museum 32, no. 1 (1990): 49–61. We can distinguish four major steps in the so-called ‘Iranization’ of Bes, which means that the Bes-image was eventually completely incorporated into the Iranian repertoire of motifs during the Achaemenid Persian period.See: Abdi, Kamyar. ‘Bes in the Achaemenid Empire’. Ars Orientalis 29 (1999): 111–40. At first the Iranians observed the new concept of Bes. The next stage would be to adopt it into a new and locally made object. In the case of Bes, locally produced images were made in a completely Egyptian style. Over time, the image of Bes was assimilated into the Iranian ideology and cosmology, because some elements of Bes resembled characteristics of Iranian culture.See: Abdi, Kamyar. ‘Notes on the Iranianization of Bes in the Achaemenid Empire’. Ars Orientalis 32 (2002): 133–62. For example, his apotropaic aspects were equalized with other Iranian protective deities, and his warrior aspect might have become associated with the army.See: Abdi, Kamyar. ‘Bes in the Achaemenid Empire’. Ars Orientalis 29 (1999): 111–40. These three steps would eventually lead to the appropriation of Bes as an image being annexed to the culture of Iran and its motifs during the Achaemenid Persian period. This necklace is an excellent example of this: the image of Bes being enclosed by Achaemenid horses.See: Abdi, Kamyar. ‘Notes on the Iranianization of Bes in the Achaemenid Empire’. Ars Orientalis 32 (2002): 133–62.