Mária T. Biró: The Bone Objects of the Roman Collection. (Catalogi Musei Nationalis Hungarici. Seria Archeologica 2; Budapest, 1994)

X. SACRAL OBJECTS, RELIGIOUS RELICS

places. After the completion its original length is 29 cm: thus, not only in its artistic quality but also because of its size it is a prominent work of antique ivory small plastics. Until the 1960s it was referred to as Bacchus statuette when Z. Kádár in his contribution denied it relying on a number of arguments of style criticism. He pointed out that in the Imperial age the flourishing Hellenistic ivory small plastics not only preferred Bacchus subjects but it derived, without exception, its representations from this circle. Still, among ivory statuettes "we cannot find its analogy either as to its type of representation or its style"

. Bacchus is wearing deerskin instead of dog's skin, resp. infant Bacchus is not wearing anything on his body except for the wreath of grapes. Bacchus is always holding cluster of grapes in his hand; apple is rather a characteristic accessory of Pan. Z. Kádár concludes — primarily on the basis of analogies from historical reliefs (the Hadrian triumphal arch from Beneventum and the arch of Septimius Severus) — that the statuette from Szombathely represents, instead of infant Bacchus, Autumnus. On the above analogies he dates the carving to the turn of the 2nd-3rd centuries. Adopting F. Pulszky's, V. Récsey's and L. Nagy's opinion he also accepts its origin from Italy or from Rome. Beside the Bacchus (Autumnus) representation there is a rather worn, damaged ivory head in the Collection with discolouring hinting at some metal. It is a composition combined with metal. Of the gods and goddesses of Roman pantheon on the ivory reliefs of the lyre the figures of Venus and Mars are discernible. (No. 600a-b.) On the plate fragment an Isis head and a Gorgo representation can be recognized. (Nos. 599-601.) On one of the pins a headless female figure is represented holding her cloak, being the primitive copy of a Hellenistic Aphrodite statue. The female figure holding her child represented on a distaff is also a synchretistic mother goddess. Another group of sacral objects is constituted by the devices corresponding formally to those used in everyday life; sacredness is represented here by the fact of offering (votive offering) respectively by the ritual events and ceremony. The definition of this group of objects is more difficult than that of the former group. At best indications, scratches hint at their one-time sacral role. Jakobsthal has published a great number of carved bone pins found in Greek sanctuaries considered by him votive offerings. Another votive offering was the knife haft with lion figure found in a sanctuary of Imperial age. (No. 486.) on the analogies of which (from Corinth to Trier) I suppose that the commerce in votive objects did exist in the Empire. The exotic Oriental pin head found in the Iseum of Szombathely unpublished as yet was also a votive offering to the sanctuary. The fragments of sticks with ring at the end of which three different types can be found in the Museum were probably the handles of statues or of emblems displayed in the course of liturgie events. (Nos. 845-847.) The drop-shaped end of the longest stick is decorated with a pine cone; this handle might have been the fragment of an Isis sistrum as well. (No. 847.) Christian liturgy has also such relics: the small spoons used at communion. These small spoons with pointed head were collected by Milojcic, documenting with contemporary representations that bread was placed on these spoons and dipped in wine in the communion. The spoons were made of bone, silver or more seldom of bronze. Their employment in liturgy is hinted by Christ monogram and by the Christian inscriptions; that is, their liturgie role can be proved only in the possession of these inscriptions.

127 Fig. 42. Bronze magic hand The "ideality" of the individual towards himself can be realized in three steps. These three steps mean three epistemological and cultural levels. Beside philosophy and theology there are always masses of people in any culture for whom their own metaphysical, religious bounds are primarily mediated through beliefs and customs transmitted on generations and family successions. In these traditions the ab-