Hybrid Creatures with Six Wings

Iron Age II, 10th–9th Century BCE

Relief of figure with six wings and headdress.

Hybrid creatures with six wings, Syria, 10th or 9th century BCE. Numerous hybrid creatures, often winged, that combined features of various animals, are known from ancient art. Another example is the cherubs on the Ark of the Covenant). This creature is reminiscent of the six-winged seraphs in Isaiah’s vision in Isaiah 6:2, although it is not serpent-like, as the term seraph probably implied. The object is from Tel Halaf (biblical Gozan in northern Syria). See also the four-winged cobra on the Seal with Four-winged Uraeus and other hybrid creatures in Ivory and Bone Carvings and Engraved Seashells.

Credits

Courtesy of The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. (CC 1.0) https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 1.

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