Budapest Régiségei 13. (1943)

ÉRTESÍTŐ - Auszüge = Estratti = Summaries 485-575

perhaps we should rather see in him the Phoenician Baal Hammon. A recently discovered richly adorned Corinthian capital is probably decorated with Jupiter-Amnion's head (Budapest Régiségei XII. p. 74 sqq). We have already known several monuments of the Egyptian cults from the environs of Aquincum (an engraved ring-stone with a Sarapis-head, Intercisa-Dunapentele, a bronze Apis, Szabolcsi-puszta etc.). The most important piece is a limestone relievo found in Székesfehérvár and kept in the museum there, representing a Nilotic scene (see Nagy, o. c. p. 28 and Dobrovits, Szépművészet, 1942. p. 11 sqq). The centre of the representation is filled by four big trees drawn schematically ; on the left, an emerging crocodile bites the nose of a mule carrying amphoras, on the right, another crocodile chases a pigmy who takes refuge on a tree. These two scenes are known from elswhere too ; we find the mule and the crocodile on a fresco in Herculaneum (Abh. Sachs, Ges. d. Wiss. V. p. 284 fig. 2, Springer-Michaelis : Hbuch d. Kunstgesch. I. 1899, p. 117, Reinach : Répertoire des Peintures p. 377) and on a mosaic from Hadrumetum (GaucklerGouvet-Hannezo : Musée de Souse p. 125, tab. VIII., Archäol. Anzeiger 1900, p. 60 fig. 1). Plinius (Nat. Hist. XXXV. 142) has described a similar composition by Nealkes. We can see the group of the treeclimbing pigmy on a fresco in Pompeii (Presuhn ; Pompei, die neueste Ausgrabungen von 1874 bis 1881, Ergänzungsband, Lieferung I. Abth. IX, Regio IX. Insula VIII, das Patrizierhaus von 1879,11.). It is uncertain, whether on the pattern which the master of the relievo copied the two scenes were already brought together or not. The relievo of Székesfehérvár is doubtless an excellent composition. Its friezelike consecutive scenes compose a line of waves ; the crest of the wave is made by the mule and the pigmy climbing the tree, the trough by the symmetrically arranged bodies of the two crocodiles. The space above these is filled up by the four trees, their perpendicular accent is repeated by the amphoras and the palm tree. This strictly geometrical composition is quite unusual for a Roman relievo : in all probability, the local artistic taste of Pannónia asserted itself here. This is confirmed by the »simplifying« character of the composition restricted to the essential traits ; on the already mentioned models in Hadrumetum and in Campania, we can find further figures which are missing here. We can conclude from the style of the other relievos found together with this stone in Székesfehérvár and from the spread of the Nilotic scenes, that it dates from the first part of the second century; it is an example of the widespread Egyptian fashion in the West and characteristically shows that the Greeks and Romans often saw Egypt in an unreal light, as a fairyland populated by mythical inhabitants. This slightly broken slab of stone was probably the side of a coffin or of a funeral monument, as pigmies figure on coffins or in tombs elsewhere too in Greek and Roman sepulchral art. The Nilotic scenes never became a mere decoration : they were never separated from their spiritual background ; where they appeared, a community of Isis-believers could generally be proved to exist. On the sigillatas from the pottery workshop of Aquincum, there often occurs the bust of a figure with an ass's head carrying a palm branch and a curly-headed woman with a high head-dress (cf. Kuzsinszky, Budapest Régiségei XL p. 94 sqq, fig. 82, p. 136 sp, fig. 120 sqq, 171 sq, fig. 145 and fig. 101 no 2,10). These are SethTyphon and Isis. These two representations only figure in this way on sigillatas in Aquincum. It is not unprecedented, that Isis and Seth-Typhon figure together. In the Chester Beatty Lit. papyrus (cf. J. Spiegel: Die Erzählung vom Streite des Horus und Seth im Pap. Beatty I. als Literaturwerk, Leipziger ägyptologische Studien, Heft 9 S. 134) and in Plutarchos (De Iside § 19, cf. also Pap. Sallier IV., 6—3) Isis saves Seth ; 4.95