Showing Results 1 - 10 of 23
Engraved tridacna (clam) shells like this one from Arad seem to have been used as cosmetic containers in the Near East and Mediterranean worlds in the late seventh and early sixth centuries BCE. This…
Ḥay ibn Yaqẓān, composed by the Muslim philosopher Abū Bakr ibn Tufayl al-Qaysi (1110–1185), relates the story of Ḥay ibn Yaqẓān, literally “Alive, son of Awake,” as he grows up alone on a deserted…
The little blue butterfly was born in the red bell of a morning glory. She had been a caterpillar before that and had lived for a while in a cocoon, but she could remember nothing about it.
She peeped…
The top register of this plaque from Hazor depicts a crouching winged sphinx wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. The lower register shows two stylized three-tiered palmettes. The…
From Jerusalem, this seal is made of bone. The fish image, a motif known only from Hebrew seals, suggests plenty and fertility (cf. Genesis 48:16) and may also allude to the life-giving nature of…
Images of this type—with a male figure holding two caprids (probably ibexes) by the horns—are dubbed “master of the animals” and are seen throughout the ancient world. They often represent a female…
In this detail from the left side of a pithos (storage jar) from Kuntillet Ajrud, two ibexes are eating the flora of a schematic tree, all set above a striding lion. These common motifs are typically…
A Memento Mori is one of three vanitas pictures in a series commissioned by Isaac de Matatia Aboab, a wealthy East India merchant, emphasizing the impermanence of material pleasures and the transitory…
This ritual scene was carved twice on a cylindrical ivory box from Hazor, about 2.7 inches high and 2.2 inches in diameter (7 × 6 cm). A kneeling man raises his hands in prayer toward a stylized tree…
On the front is a lily, commonly found on Yehud coins. On the back is a bird that most ornithologists consider to be a falcon; there is no consensus on its symbolism. With wings spread, this falcon…
