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Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
c. 1st-2nd century AD
Length: 12mm, Width: 9mm, Depth: 1mm
Banded white to bluish translucent blue-lace agate oval tapered tablet intaglio depicting a winged Eros with a whip riding a hippocampus, facing left.
This type of iconography may carry an eschatological meaning. Indeed, in funerary contexts, hippocamps are frequently understood as psychopompic creatures, symbolising the passage of the deceased across the sea to the Islands of the Blessed. Eros, who in ancient thought could embody the human soul itself, is often associated with transition and transformation beyond death. When depicted in the company of hippocamps, guiding or accompanying his movement over the sea, the scene may therefore be interpreted as an allegorical representation of the soul’s voyage to its eternal abode, escorted safely to its future dwelling in the afterlife.
This distinctly banded white to bluish translucent blue-lace agate is type of chalcedony, a variety of polycrystalline quartz. It displays a curved banding in which successive layers vary in colour and translucency and display a vitreous lustre.
Literature: Similar examples can be found in the Yorkshire Museum, York (red carnelian, 3rd century AD); the Kestner Museum of Hannover (orange carnelian, 1st-2nd century AD, inv. K. 960) and the Israel Museum Jerusalem (orange carnelian, 2nd century AD, inv. IMJ70.62.327).
c. 1st-2nd century AD
Length: 12mm, Width: 9mm, Depth: 1mm
Banded white to bluish translucent blue-lace agate oval tapered tablet intaglio depicting a winged Eros with a whip riding a hippocampus, facing left.
This type of iconography may carry an eschatological meaning. Indeed, in funerary contexts, hippocamps are frequently understood as psychopompic creatures, symbolising the passage of the deceased across the sea to the Islands of the Blessed. Eros, who in ancient thought could embody the human soul itself, is often associated with transition and transformation beyond death. When depicted in the company of hippocamps, guiding or accompanying his movement over the sea, the scene may therefore be interpreted as an allegorical representation of the soul’s voyage to its eternal abode, escorted safely to its future dwelling in the afterlife.
This distinctly banded white to bluish translucent blue-lace agate is type of chalcedony, a variety of polycrystalline quartz. It displays a curved banding in which successive layers vary in colour and translucency and display a vitreous lustre.
Literature: Similar examples can be found in the Yorkshire Museum, York (red carnelian, 3rd century AD); the Kestner Museum of Hannover (orange carnelian, 1st-2nd century AD, inv. K. 960) and the Israel Museum Jerusalem (orange carnelian, 2nd century AD, inv. IMJ70.62.327).