Terracotta

PHRC047 : Dedication to Arsinoe Philadelphos, Salamis - Cyprus (270-240 BC) Dedication

This amphora is the sole vase inscribed with a dedication for Arsinoe Philadelphos apart from the Alexandrian oinochoai of Ptolemaic ruler cult. The difficulty in interpreting this object stems from the fact that because of its decoration, the amphora closely resembles funerary amphoras from Eastern Cyprus of the period Cypro-Archaic I (700-600 BC). If we exclude the possibility of a modern fake, the only possible interpretations are that an amphora of the archaic period was found and reused in the early Hellenistic period, or that an archaic type of decoration inspired the producer of the vase at the time of the diffusion of Arsinoe's cult. Be that as it may, this large amphora might have been used to stock edible goods for ritual offerings to the deified queen. Its size and rich...

PHRC046 : Dedication (fake?) to Queen Kleopatra VII, Salamis - Cyprus (47-42 BC) Dedication

This terracotta representation of Eros riding a rooster was dedicated to a queen Kleopatra whose identity is revealed by a Cypriot bronze coin of Kleopatra VII found together with the statuette. The rare iconography of the coin, which represents the queen suckling a baby Ptolemy XV Kaisarion in an attitude associating them with Isis and Horus (and possibly with Aphrodite and Eros), allows us to narrow down the chronological limits of the dedication to the early years after the birth of the son of Kleopatra and Caesar. However, various problematic details concerning the text and palaeography of the inscription, together with the notorious habit of the Cesnola brothers to enrich their collection of Cypriot antiquities with little scruple for the provenance of the purchased objets, do not...