Radocsay Dénes - Gerevich Lászlóné szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 32-33. (Budapest, 1969)

BOARDMAN, JOHN: Near eastern and archaic greek gems in Budapest

hind. The animal has an ear and stubby horn (or a second ear) and a short tail. Before them the artist began to cut what was probably intended to be a boar (see below). There is a ground line and a line border. This is a Graeco-Phoenician scarab of the fifth century B. C, made in the east, possibly in Cyprus or on the coast of Syria-Palestine. Bes was an Egyptian deity, adopted in Phoenicia where he often appears holding one or more animals, upright or inverted, like any eastern Master of Animals. Less often he is shown in the Good Shepherd pose, as here, with an animal on his shoulders. It seems possible to trace the origin of this motif back to more formal Phoenician representations of Bes on gems, where he is shown with a frontal head, wearing a dress which leaves one leg bare, and holding two or three pairs of animals, of which the upper pair leap up from his hands over his shoulders. The posture and the pairs of animals are taken 6a — b. Syrian scarab. Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts 7. Syrian scarab. Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts