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Israel Museum Studies in Archaeology Volume 8 · 2016‒2017 Israel Museum Studies in Archaeology Volume 8 • 2016‒2017 An annual publication of The Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Archaeology Wing, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem This volume was made possible by The Montgomery Securities and Friends Endowment Fund of the Israel Museum Additional support was provided by Dr. David and Jemima Jeselsohn, Zurich Editor: Silvia Rozenberg Associate editors: Shirly Ben-Dor Evian, Debby Hershman English editor: Miriam Feinberg Vamosh Advisory Board: Tallay Ornan, Rina Talgam, Haim Goldfus Design adaptation: Batya Segal Original design concept: Masha Pozina Printed by Elinir Digital Print, Petah Tikva All correspondence and papers for publication should be addressed to: The Editor Israel Museum Studies in Archaeology The Israel Museum, Jerusalem P.O.B. 71117, Jerusalem 9171002 Israel E-mail address: [email protected] ISSN 1565-3617 © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2017 All rights reserved Front cover: Bronze candelabra and lamps from a Byzantine hoard, 6th century CE Back cover: Bezel design of a bronze signet ring from a Byzantine hoard, 6th century CE (drawn from the positive) Contents Yigal Bloch and Laura A. Peri 2 I Placed My Name There: The Great Inscription of Tukulti-Ninurta I, King of Assyria, from the Collection of David and Cindy Sofer, London Rachel Caine Kreinin 57 “Divine Reflexivity”: a Case Study of Greco-Roman Egyptian Terracotta Figurines from the Collection of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem Orit Peleg-Barkat, Hillel Geva and 74 A Monumental Herodian Ionic Capital Ronny Reich from the Upper City of Jerusalem Ronny Reich 89 Addendum 1: Where was the Capital Incorporated? Orit Peleg-Barkat, Hillel Geva 91 Addendum 2: A Monumental Herodian Ionic Capital from the Royal Stoa? – a Reply to Ronny Reich Tali Sharvit 97 A Marble Sphinx Statue from Horvat Omrit Moshe Fischer, Arie Nissenbaum and 116 Appendix: Yannis Maniatis Marble Analysis of the Omrit Sphinx Karni Golan, Haim Goldfus and 117 Why Hide? – Hoarding in Late David Mevorah Antiquity in View of a Byzantine Hoard from Israel Bruno Callegher 162 A Hoard of Byzantine Folles (ca. 610 CE) within a Hoard of Bronze Objects: Some Hypotheses 170 Information for Contributors 171 Abbreviations “Divine Reflexivity”: he conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great in the year 332 BCE brought a Case Study of Greco-Roman aboutT changes in the nature of local paganism. With the influx of soldiers, merchants and Egyptian Terracotta Figurines civilians from mainland Greece came their from the Collection of The gods, and it was on the banks of the Nile that they made their new home. The Greeks Israel Museum, Jerusalem were profoundly influenced by the local cults, and accepted the indigenous divini- ties, identifying them with their own gods. Much is known to us about the official cult Rachel Caine Kreinin of Greco-Roman Egypt; however, the world The Israel Museum, Jerusalem of the private worshiper is often harder to uncover. Greco-Roman terracotta figurines, found in abundance in the Egyptian cities and countryside (chora), serve as silent testimony to the rich and complex world of private worship. The most commonly depicted divinities are Isis, the great mother goddess, her son Harpocrates, Serapis the Greco-Egyptian god of healing and Bes, the dwarf god, protector of households, mothers and childbirth. Some figurines depict humans taking part in rituals, priests carrying cultic statues of divinities, dancers and musicians. The Israel Museum is home to an extensive collection of Greco-Roman Egyptian terracotta figurines, which were purchased in part in the antiquities market in Egypt in the early 1950s, and graciously gifted to us by Dr. Catherine and Dr. James 1 H. Schwartz, as well as by Alice Tully. The collection holds an intriguing group of figurines which will be the focus of this 2 article. The figurines, the likes of which 3 can also be found in other collections, depict deities either holding an image of their own cultic statue or that of another deity, as for example an image of Athena Neith carrying a cultic statue of Serapis Fig. 1 4 (fig. 1), Harpocrates carrying his own cultic Figurine/lamp of Athena-Neith holding 5 a statue of Serapis statue (figs. 2, 3), or Harpocrates carrying 6 Fayum, Egypt, 1st century CE, terracotta the cultic statue of Horus (fig. 4). I refer to IMSA 8 • 2016–2017: 57–73 57 Fig. 2 (left) the figure the deity holds as a cultic statue In her book Religion of the Gods, Ritual, Harpocrates holding a statue of himself rather than a living divinity since quite often Paradox and Reflexivity, Kimberly Patton Fayum, Egypt, 1st century there is a clear plinth at the foot of the cultic explores a fascinating notion, that of “divine CE, terracotta statue, which implies that it was meant to reflexivity,” which in essence she defines Fig. 3 (right) represent a statue rather than a living deity as the “ritual performance by a deity of an Detail of plinth at the (figs. 1, 2, 3). Furthermore, while the god action known as belonging to the sphere of base of the cultic statue 9 held by the god holding the statue is usually portrayed in a that deity’s human cultic worship.” (see fig. 2) naturalistic and lively form, the statue of Images of divine reflexivity are quite the divinity the god holds is far less so and common in Greek as well as Roman art, “statuary” in comparison. and the phenomenon has generated a fair 10 This iconographic model is typically amount of scholarly debate over the years. used in the representation of human wor- The religious concept hidden behind this shipers, such as theophoroi priests carrying iconographic and literary phenomenon 7 divinities on their shoulders (fig. 5), or should be understood, according to Patton, naophoroi, a pair of priests carrying a by viewing the divine being not only as a miniature shrine (naos), that houses the recipient of cult or the origin of it, but as a 8 image of the deity (fig. 6). practicant in its own right. Patton suggests It would seem then, that these that the gods should be “considered not only figurines depict gods performing actions as the object of cult but more importantly, typically reserved for human worshipers. If as the origin and catalyst for all religious understood correctly, these images deliver behavior, including that taking place in the 11 a unique iconographical message. But how human realm.” For example, on an Attic should we interpret them? What is the origin red-figure cup, Demeter is seen laying a 12 of this iconographic model? And why was it sheaf of wheat on an altar (fig. 7); on adapted for representation of the divine in a Roman version of an Eleusinian relief, Greco-Roman Egypt? Demeter and her daughter Persephone are 58 R. Caine Kreinin: Divine Reflexivity presented sprinkling incense onto a small If we consider the portrayal prevalent Fig. 4 (left) Harpocrates carrying a flaming altar; on an Attic red-figure neck in our Greco-Roman Egyptian terracotta statue of Horus amphora, Apollo, the god of purification, is figurines as exhibiting the notion of divine Fayum, Egypt, 1st century CE, terracotta seen washing his hand at a lustral basin; and reflexivity, how can we account for the on a red-figure bell crater, Hermes leads a difference in the iconographic model? Fig. 5 (right) 13 Priest carrying a statue of goat to sacrifice. As Patton proposes, the I would like to propose that the reason Harpocrates iconographic associations presented in these for the iconographical difference lies in the Egypt, 3rd–2nd centuries BCE, terracotta images are not arbitrary, since the deities function of the figurines themselves as well are presented alongside objects, and takes as the difference in praxis of pagan cult in part in actions derived from their sacred Greece, Rome and Egypt. sphere of influence – Demeter is presented In accordance with their traditional alongside the wheatsheaf, which is central raison d’être as upholders of the universal to her cult, Apollo takes part in an act order (ma’at), temple precincts in Egypt in of purification that is typical of his cult, Ptolemaic and Roman times maintained whereas Hermes opts for the sacrifice of a cultic ceremonies, processions and rituals ram. In their actions the gods practice and that were performed on a daily basis and on 14 reinforce their own religion. specific festival days throughout the year. When looking at examples of the At the heart of the temple ritual and the portrayal of reflexive deities in Greece and annual festival was the act of “seeing the Rome, we see that the majority of represen- god” or “revealing his face,” as well as the tations depict one of two actions – libation “appearance” and “coming out” of the statue 15 or sacrifice. However, it seems that missing of the deity, the public appearance of the from this repertoire is the representation cult-statue and its procession along a tradi- 16 prevalent in Egypt, of a divinity carrying its tional route. The procession of the statues, own cultic statue or that of another divinity both privately, within the temple precinct (figs. 1, 2, 4). and publicly without, emulated the concept IMSA 8 • 2016–2017: 57–73 59 Fig. 6 of the perpetual daily rebirth of the sun god, through his light. As Ragnhild B. Finnestad Priests carrying a shrine containing a statue of and with it, of the cosmos. Processions often puts it, “seeing the god in the temple was an Harpocrates embarked from the darkness of the sanctuary experience sensed through the eyes, not an Fayum, Egypt, 1st century CE, terracotta or crypt, where the statue resided, which inner, mental, metaphysical contemplation.

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