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 A Marble Sphinx Statue n incomplete white marble sculpture of a female sphinx was found during from Horvat Omrit theA 2004 excavation season in Horvat Omrit (hereafter, Omrit), in northern Israel (fig. 1).2 The sphinx, whose head is missing, Tali Sharvit1 is depicted with a winged human torso with female breasts on a lion’s lower part. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem Crouching on its hind legs, its tail curls over the right hind paw, while the forepaws are broken down from the elbows. Hair locks remain over the shoulders as well as parts of the broken wings springing from the shoulder blades. Traces of red color are still preserved over the nape and inside the hair curls. The sphinx is attached to a rectangular plinth with a high, partly broken, vertical board at the back that was presumably concealed to the viewer (2:a–d).3 The statue was found in the temple complex at Omrit, where a series of three temples was built, each new temple replacing and enveloping its predecessor. Its exact find spot was in fill that was cleared from Area SP1, related to the secondary foundation walls of Temple II, dated to the Flavian period, within the earlier Temple I podium (fig. 3). The fill contained other sculpted marble fragments and inscriptions, fragments of architectural elements, ash, bones, plaster, pottery and glass. The sphinx was found under a marble slab with an inscription of a probable Late Roman–Byzantine date, and in the adjacent locus a Byzantine lamp was found. It seems that this sub-floor area was opened and filled in the Byzantine period.4 Background The sphinx is a hybrid mythological creature with an animal body (usually a lion) and a human head (male or female); adorned with wings and/or horns.5 Over the centuries the creature’s depiction has IMSA 8 • 2016–2017: 97–115 97 Fig. 1 appeared in a remarkable variety of combi- ended in a snake head and the paws were Map of the Omrit region nations that integrate various animals. The occasionally depicted as bird’s claws. From Fig. 2:a–d earliest artistic depictions, as a half-human, the 5th century BCE the female features, The sphinx from Omrit half-lion male creature, appeared in Egypt including breasts, became more prominent Fig. 3 around the middle of the 3rd millennium and the sphinx was commonly depicted in The Temple complex at 6 Horvat Omrit BCE. From Egypt the sphinx probably a crouching posture. spread to Mesopotamia, the Levant and The sphinx also found its way to the Mediterranean, usually in a religious Greek literature and myth. While Homer or heroic context. In the first third of the has no reference to the sphinx, Hesiod (8th 2nd millennium BCE, female sphinxes, century BCE) refers to it as the daughter of depicting queens or princesses, started to Echidna (or Chimera) and Orthus and the appear in Egypt.7 During the 2nd mil- sister of the Nemean Lion.9 In 5th-century lennium BCE, slightly differently depicted Greek literature the creature was described winged presentations of the Egyptian as a young winged woman with a lion’s10 sphinx spread to Asia and the Classical or dog’s11 lower body. In Boeotian myths, world. In the Near East and the ancient it is described as a female winged creature Land of Israel heraldic male and female related to Oedipus and the city of Thebes.12 pairs or pairs of female sphinxes became The sphinx was said to have been sent rather common.8 In Greece the sphinx to Thebes by Hera to bring disaster to was commonly depicted beginning in the the Kadmeians. In Thebes it seized and archaic period in Greek art. It appeared in devoured men, mostly young, every day. A painting, sculpture and in funerary contexts riddle composed on the advice of the Muses usually with a female head, wings and a was offered as a means of escape to her lion’s lower body. The lion’s tail sometimes victims: “What is that which has one voice 98 T. Sharvit: A Marble Sphinx Statue 2a 2b 2c 2d and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed seems to be an eclectic representation of the and three-footed?” Oedipus solved the riddle creature and not a direct copy of a known declaring that it referred to man, “for as a statue.15 babe he is four-footed, going on four limbs, In addition to the Omrit sphinx, a as an adult he is two-footed, and as an old few other sphinxes were found in Roman man he gets besides a third support in a Palestine. One is a fragment of an imported staff.” Oedipus then killed the monster, or oil lamp from Caesarea Maritima, depicting the sphinx killed herself by throwing herself a female sphinx crouching in a frontal from her rock.13 Apollodorus also gives the pose, with outspread wings and female fullest description of the sphinx: “She had breasts, probably of the 1st century CE. the face of a woman, the breast and feet and Its legs are tightly attached and its hair is tail of a lion, and the wings of a bird.”14 gathered behind with locks on its shoul- In Italy, the Etruscan sphinx followed ders.16 Another example is a lead coffin the Greek type and gradually gained popu- from Akhziv decorated in relief with female larity, subsequently becoming a common sphinxes, crouching to left or right, upon a theme in Roman art all over the Roman plinth. The coffin is dated to the late 2nd Empire. Greek, Hellenistic and Etruscan to mid-3rd centuries CE.17 None of these sphinxes were widely imitated; most examples are similar to the Omrit sphinx. common were the sphinxes copied from the The depiction of the Omrit sphinx is depictions on the throne of Zeus at Olympia quite naturalistic and it is well conveyed by and on the helmet of the Athena Parthenos the various textures achieved by carving, in Athens, both by Phidias. The Roman such as the smooth skin, coarse hair, tender type was usually depicted with a classical fur and delicate, feathered wings, and by the hairstyle (a braid on the back of the neck emphasized ribs and muscles under the skin. or hair locks over the shoulders) and with The well-proportioned body, naturally and stylized wings, and it incorporated animal correctly carved organs depicted by delicate udders on the stomach in addition to human plastic transitions, emphasize the superb female breasts. Fig. 4 In the Greek-speaking East, a region The sphinx from Omrit, detail: color preserved deeply influenced by Hellenistic culture, on the nape the Roman classicism of the imperial period receptively returned to Greek and Hellenistic traditions. Hence, it is no surprise that the Omrit sphinx, revealed in a Roman site in the Galilee, seems to be related to the later stage in a long evolution. The Omrit Sphinx Depicted sitting alone, the Omrit sphinx cannot be connected to the Greek myths. It should be considered the image of a hybrid creature whose meanings and depictions were already well rooted in the collective culture of the Roman world. The statue 100 T. Sharvit: A Marble Sphinx Statue work of the artist. The variety in depiction featuring this hairstyle technique are also Fig. 5 The sphinx from Omrit, of the curls on the shoulders, the tail resting dated to the Antonine period, for example in detail: upper torso nonchalantly over the right paw, and the the statues of Dionysos from Ephesus (Asia Fig.