Eagle-Head

A staff, but also something with a bird's head. I thought it was a peacock's head, but not sure the feathers don't look right.(But could be stylised).
Looks most like a cockateel. But cockateels are native to Australia!! Any bird buffs able to identify the profile?



Edited by Sidney - 09-Mar-2012 at 21:03

There are cockatoos in Africa, with similar plumage. But I have to admit that I never read anything about cockatoos holding symbolic value in Egypt of the Mediterranean.
http://www.exploringnature.org/db/detail.php?dbID=41&detID=2115

Whatever the figure in question is, it doesn't look like a snake to me.


Edited by Don Quixote - 10-Mar-2012 at 01:12

Yes, but the bird head definately has a crest that falls down behind its neck. I don't think falcons/hawks do - unless you can provide a picture. It could also be a divine/mythic bird with no relation to an actual species, but it would be nice to find another example to compare it to.

Could be that the small bird head is a smaller version of the bird-man's head. The man could have a lowered crest of feathers down near his shoulders.

Ollios - have you seen the sculpture from a different angle? Can you tell us something about the ground area of the figures (ie their feet - type of footware if any, any plants/animals?).

The staff seems to bifercate in the palm of the bird-man's hand. Its an odd shape for a staff to take. Anybody seen anything similar?


Edited by Sidney - 10-Mar-2012 at 09:44

Falcon hood always has a crest Sidney:It makes bird beautiful with character!



Edited by medenaywe - 10-Mar-2012 at 09:50

Originally posted by Sidney The website above says the sculpture could be identified thus; "The 1935 Guide of the Museum mentions a fragment from a sarcophagus from Hierapytna in Crete from the II century AD where Horus with a hawk head and long hair is seated in one of the niches. In his right hand he holds a scepter and the sacred uraeus, symbols of his sacred nature and kingship. To his right a young worshipper heads to the god. On his head a double tip cap with an uraeus too. Next to the young man a small Apis bull with the sun disc between its horns. Next to him stands Isis. The long left side contains additional scenes. The sarcophagus is said to be the work of a Greek sculptor who clumsily reproduced Egyptian scenes that he did not fully understand. The four sides of the sarcophagus depicted scenes of worshipping of Horus, Isis and Osiris by a young man and a woman, likely aimed at portraying those buried within."

Well done Sidney, you can be great researcher. I have to accept that theory unless Museum authorites changes its table or we find more trustable source about it.




Edited by Ollios - 10-Mar-2012 at 10:30

I don't agree with the interpretation of the catalogue - what does it mean "Represented Egyptian scene that he didn't understand?" It's us who don't understand it, because the knew for it's understanding was lost along the flow of time and cultures, not the person who did the work and key what he was doing. In ancient time making sculptures wasn't an art for the art of it, in the way we are seeing it now - it was or sacred work, in which the sculptor followed the iconography of his time and culture; or decorative work, like the Roman did Greek copies and put them in their homes; in the both cases whoever did the statue was a craftman, repeating iconographic convention, not imagining stuff. Every religious representation was seen as sacred, the gods literally inhabiting it too, that's why statues of gods were fed, clothed, etc; to misrepresent a divinity wouldn't bring the desired effect of whatever the ones who represent it were seeking.

My opinion is that this is definitely work that resulted from fusion of religious ideas, identifying the gods in one culture with the gods from another one - something that the Greeks were doing all the time not only with Egyptian gods, but with Anatolian and Thracian ones - some Greek cities were worshiping the Thracian Cotys, identified with Demeter, or Persephone; and the Thracian Sabazius was identified with Dionysus. But I had never researched Mitraism, and it's possible influence in Greece or Egypt, so unless I unless I dig some good articled on that I'm going to be speaking unprepared, which I rather not do. So far I see the work as a product of Greko-Egyptian religious fusing, /with the representation of Horus and his priest being the closest to the Cretan one/, with Horus identified with Zeus.

I can agree on the bird being a hawk, since it makes more sense in symbolic way, but it doesn't look like a cobra to me. Here is an Egyptian cobra-iconography:

The upper part of the body is not like the one on thy statue - there is no plumage /or whatever is on the head of the figure/; and on the statue there is no body to it, only the upper part that is wider; and the head of what I see on the statue is not a snake one, it has a beak. Here some more examples of cobra iconography in Egypt:

Edited by Don Quixote - 10-Mar-2012 at 14:06

Where is the crest?
I looked at bunch of picts of "uraeus" here http://www.google.com/search?q=uraeus+picture&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=9Xt&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=YAJcT_X5MsiTiQKt09XBCw&ved=0CCcQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=613
and found this one, from Lower Egypt, after 600 BC http://www.historyplace.com/specials/slideshows/mummies/mummies6.htm:

Snake with plumage! Not only this but his tail pucks up above his head. So I though - can the "plumed bird" be a plumed snake, and his "plume" actually to be his tail hanging down? This would explain where the body of the snake is /curled behind the upper part of his body/.

I don't see horns on the animal, and it looks like a lamb to me, having curly hair. Sheep were sacrificed to Zeus:
"...Demosthenes, Speech 21, 21.53 - Demosthenes instructs the people to sacrifice “to Zeus of the Ship . . . three oxen and with each ox three sheep.”

Homer Iliad Book 3.104 - The sacrifice of a black ewe to Zeus.

Homer Iliad Book 3.279 - “He spake, and cut the lambs’ throats with the pitiless bronze; and laid them down upon the ground gasping and failing of breath, for the bronze had robbed them of their strength. Then they drew wine from the bowl into the cups, and poured it forth, and made prayer to the gods that are for ever.”..."
http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/consortium/ancientolympianszeus8.html

If the scene depicts a priest who brings libations to Zeus/Horus, then the lamb can be brought as a sacrificial animal.