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

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

by a hero on a Late Assyrian seal.

9 Examples of Bes in this manner on Phoenician gems are: (i) Berlin 100, Furtwdngler, pl. 3 (Antike Gemmen pl. 7.21; Lajard, Recherches . . . Culte de Mithra pl. 69.1). Sardonyx scarab. With two goats, two uraei, two lions. Winged disc overhead. Cross-hatched exergue. (ii) Once Studniezka (Antike Gemmen pl. 61.13; Lijjpold, Gemmen und Kameen pl. 75. 1). Chalcedony scarab from Cyprus. With two goats and two lions. (iii) London BM WA 103300 {Lajard, pi. 69.5). Chalcedony scarab fromByblos (Fig. 10). With two winged uraei and two lions. Winged disc overhead. Hatched exergue. (iv) Cagliari 19791. Green jasper scarab from Tharros. With two goats, two uraei, two lions. (v) Cagliari 35112. Green jasper scarab from Tharros. With two goats and two uraei. (vi) Madrid 37030. Green jasper scarab from Ibiza. Vives y Escudero, Necropoli pi. 25.15. With two goats and two uraei. Cross-hatched exergue. (vii) Once Newton —Robinson. Agate scarab from Golgoi, Cyprus. Christie's, 22. vi. 1909, pl. 1.13. With two uraei (?) and two goats. Very summary. There is a fine example of the figure on embossed gold plaques from Cyprus in London,

10 where Bes holds two goats and, over his shoulders, two lions. In the following stage the figure is shown in profile, not a normal treatment for Bes in his homeland, and the dress is omitted, except usually for the lionskin which is shown by its tail. These are rougher pieces, but the symmetrical arrangement of pairs of animals being held, including one pair at or beside the shoulders, is retained. The animals are more often snakes now:

11 (viii) Cagliari 19792. Green jasper scarab from Tharros. With two goats and two uraei. (ix) London BM 370, Walters, pi. 7. Green jasper scarab from Tharros (Fig. 11). With two pairs of uraei. (x) Munich A 1275, Brandt, pi. 24.218. Green jasper scarab. With two pairs of uraei. With this type of the profile Bes accepted it is easy to see how, especially with some influence from Greek sources, Bes could be shown shouldering a single animal, although this too is an older eastern motif.

12 The style of these figures is more sophisticated, with more modelling of the body, and the god's features and beard are clearly borrowed from the Greek satyr. On (xi), shown in Fig. 12, and (xii) he carries a lion across his shoulders, while the pair of creatures hitherto held inverted beside his legs, is reduced to a single piglet, held upside down by its tail. In the finest version, (xiii) in Fig. 13, where foreign lions and snakes are at last abandoned, he carries an antelope gracefully draped over his shoulders, while a dog leaps at his side, as it might beside any Greek athlete or warrior. Only one example shows him 9 London Western Asiatic Dept. 132115, with two goats and two stags, face frontal. 10 BMC Jewellery no. 1570, 163, fig. 45, pi. 26. 11 Cf. also London BM 367, Walters pi. 6, a green jasper scarab from Tharros, where Bes is winged and waves two uraei aloft while there are two others at his side. 12 E.g., on the Middle Assyrian cylinder, D e 1 a p o r t e, ii pi. 95. A 900; on ivories, Mall o w a n , Nimrud ii 528, pl. VII, figs. 443 — 445, 447 — 448 ; a figure carrying a monkey, lion, goat or gazelle, and holding another animal; on a plaque, Nippur ii pi. 138.2. to