Late Period submission for @kakuhidaweek's prompt "pre-history"
Yeah I'll take any excuse to go bronze age with a submission. The notes on this one get a bit long, so I'll put all that under the cut:
When coming up for my design for Kakuzu here, I decided I wanted to go with a "came back wrong" kind of theme. So for that, I decided to take inspiration from what we have surrounding the egyptian god Osiris, or Usire as he's also known by.
Mainly, I chose that slant of inspiration because of texts where Osiris seems to be more than a little bit angry in the underworld:
Text Source: The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses (Have an Internet Archive Link)
"Anger" seems to be putting it mildly here. The concept of having this anger after being brought back from 'death' felt like a good fit for where I wanted to take Kakuzu here, so I went with that and took in some of Osiris' more vegetation aspects into Kakuzu's design.
This led to some really fun ideas for the mask critters Kakuzu has - notably created with hearts Kakuzu rips out of those unfortunate to come across him. Well we also have a group of four figures represented in the Book of Caverns, who decapitate, slaughter, and notably here, tear the hearts out of the enemies of Osiris.
Source: The Slaughterers: A Study of the Ḫꜣ.tyw as Liminal Beings in Ancient Egyptian Thought (freely accessible!)
The above source is actually part of a larger freely accessible collection of articles on such figures known as 'duatlings' for those interested. Check out their database too!
Anyway, if you'd like to see the tableau referenced:
Source: Aspects of Iconography and Transmission in the Book of Caverns (freely accessible!)
You'll notice I also used this register depicting these figures into the border decoration elements of this piece.
For the way I dressed Kakuzu, I took some inspiration for his headpiece from depictions of nobility wearing this headcone set, like you see for example in this painting from the met museum: Ipuy and Wife Receive Offerings from Their Children
Although the design of the headband itself takes more from this Relief of a Nobleman from the Brooklyn Museum collection, which is where I also got the idea for stylizing the braids in the way that I did.
Special mention on designing the headband for Standard-bearing statue of Ramose from the Museo Egizio collection.
Anyway, I thought I'd make the cone piece look more like a literal lotus, similar to how Nefertem tends to be depicted I suppose, given the lotus' symbolism with rebirth and renewal. I also put the lotus motif into his eyes as well, as a bonus feature, and in the bloodied waters surrounding them. The water itself is stylized similar to how it is in this tomb painting depicting Nebamun fowling and fishing in the marshes, courtesy of the British Museum collection.
Further references used:
Necklace Piece from the Louvre Collection
Hinged Cuff Bracelet from the Met Museum Collection
Hidan though, I noticeably did NOT go egyptian! I wanted to pick a bronze age location that felt more fitting given his backstory, and I decided somewhere in the levant would fit best. The area is sandwiched between two big regional powers of the time, the egyptians and the hittites, similar to how the Land of Steam was. Well known city-states like Ugarit here were mainly known for their economic importance, which also felt fitting for where Hidan came from. It felt like the right choice for a myriad of reasons there.
I initially considered making Anat the deity he worshipped here by him; a war goddess from Ugarit makes sense on paper. She's from the right region, and she is quite enthusiastic about her war aspect to put it mildly, if you've ever read anything where she cameos. She's also described as wearing the severed heads and hands of her enemies on her person, which is quite fun of her. I actually took inspiration from that idea with Anat for the heads on the coils attached to Hidan's spear.
I wanted it to kind of look like they were attached to the belt by the hair forming into the spear's rope coil, with the heads themselves based on glass beads meant to depict human faces you also find from the region. Most of the examples you'll see online are actually from the iron age, like this glass pendant from the met, but you do get some cases from the bronze age, like this much scrunglier example from the louvre's collection that was found in Ugarit.
One of the faces specifically though is based more on a specific piece of pottery shaped like a woman's head from Ugarit, in the same collection from the Louvre. The way the nose is chipped off almost looks like that of a skull's, and that got stuck in my mind.
Would I go for Anat though with Hidan if it's really down to the wire? I'm not sure! She was quite popular and I feel it would be more fitting given his backstory to go with a way more obscure Z lister. Still, I do like using her as a design influence on that end regardless.
For Hidan's kilt design, I went with cues from the louvre's baal stele. It's a bit faint, but I liked the wrapping and main pattern there. Although the way it was layered, I couldn't depict the fringe end you kind of also see here, but if I were to draw Hidan again like this, you probably would see the fringe in a different posing.
I thought it would be fun to give him a prominent curl to his braid, which is something you do see quite a lot in depictions of deities from this region. You see it in the Baal Stele I linked above, but some other examples:
If I took the time to hunt where I got these screenshots from I will be here forever, but I'll update this post with the information when I refind it I guess. The perks of putting all your design yapping under the cut! Anyway, have a fun little paper on the hathoric curl which is mildly related here, might as well share it.
If you made it this far, drop in the tags or replies who I should bronze age-ify next, lmaoooooooo
