Plaster cast of a Roman copy of Praxiteles’s Aphrodite of Knidos. Original marble statue circa 350s BCE, plaster cast circa 1905. 21-109.

This piece is a plaster cast of a Roman copy of a cult statue of Aphrodite. The Greek sculptor Praxiteles carved the marble original for the city of Knidos in the fourth century BCE. The cast depicts the goddess of love, known to the ancient Greeks as Aphrodite and to the ancient Romans as Venus. The goddess stands in the nude with her right hand held in front of her pelvis and her left grabbing a cloth that drapes over a pot. The body of the Knidian Aphrodite was extensively reproduced in the Roman world. In the second century CE, funerary statues of individual women depicted in the guise of Venus: the goddess’s sublime body typically joins individualized heads of Roman matrons. The women so portrayed were literally shown as the present-day embodiment of the peerless goddess of love. The idealization of the facial features in this work suggests that we are looking at Venus rather than a mortal look-alike.

-Emily Profitt

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Reverse of a silver coin with the deified Empress Livia. Rome, Year of the Four Emperors (68–69 CE). 8-5634.

The obverse of this Roman silver coin features the Emperor Galba (r. 68–69 CE) and the reverse depicts Livia (59 BCE–29 CE), Empress and Consort of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Livia is shown standing holding a libation bowl (patera) and a scepter. The legend reads “DIVA AVGVSTA,” the Goddess Augusta. Like her husband, Livia was deified after her death. Her presence on a Galba’s coin may be explained with her divine powers and association with legitimate imperial power. Galba became emperor during a tumultuous period of civil war and had to contend with enemies for power. By flaunting the protection of the Diva Augusta, the revered deified empress, Galba might have hoped to buttress the legitimacy of his rule.

-Emily Wang

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Carved Etruscan sarcophagus lid, stone, Etruria, undated. 8-1278.

Funerary practice in ancient Etruria often included ritual meals for the newly-departed. Family members likely dined in the tomb itself. Depictions of the kline, or dining-couch, abound in Etruscan tombs, sarcophagi (stone coffins), and funerary art. This is the likely context of this sarcophagus lid. It immortalizes a woman lying on a kline as if taking a postprandial nap. Such finely carved memorials were reserved for the very few. Even fewer were the wealthy women who enjoyed them. Latest research demonstrates that women were more likely to be cremated rather than inhumated. Their ashes often ended up in perishable vessels. The woman who rested beneath that lid therefore belonged to the exclusive group of the vastly privileged.

-Bryn Treloar-Ballard

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Silver Coin in the name of Queen Philistis of Syracuse, Sicily, 240-214 BCE. 8-5473.

The obverse shows a young woman in profile facing left. The woman wears a veil and a band-like diadem. On the reverse the winged goddess of victory Nike drives a chariot drawn by four horses. The reverse legend reads BAΣІΛІΣΣΑΣ ΦІΛІΣΤІΔΟΣ, “of queen Philistis.” In antiquity the coinage of Philistis was known as the “Philistid(e)ion.” Philistis was the wife of Hieron II (274-215), king of Syracuse. Only the gods were represented on coinage before the Hellenistic Age. Considering the iconography of the earlier Syracusan coins (see the decadrachm from Syracuse), it may be argued that queen Philistis appeared as a new Arethusa, the city’s patron nymph. That idea may explain the appeal of this coin type. Proportionally, the coins of Philistis outnumber the silver issues minted in the name of Hieron, her husband.

-Diliana Angelova

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A silver decadrachm, die cut by Kimon, minted in Syracuse, Sicily, circa 406-400 B.C. 8-5534.

The obverse of this coin bears the imagery of a woman’s head, identified as Arethusa, the patron nymph of Syracuse. Arethusa transformed into a spring to escape from the amorous pursuit of Alpheus, a river god. In the end, Alpheus succeeded in uniting with Arethusa, both in their watery forms. An eighth-century BCE Delphi oracle is said to have dictated the place of the future city of Syracuse at where the Arethusa spring and Alpheus river converged. The inscription above Arethusa’s head reads, ΣΥΡAKOΣІΩΝ, “of the Syracusans.” The choice of Arethusa’s face conveys a sense of pride in Syracuse’s founding legend. The face of a city’s founding deity can be found on the coins of other Greek city states, such as Athena for Athens and Tyche Astarte for Greco-Phoenician cities.

-Ashley Young

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Beige linen child’s tunic with appliqué decoration in wool and linen. Late Antique Egypt. 5-16938.

The tunic, made of fine linen, is decorated with colorful appliqués in both sleeves and the neck areas. Found in a tomb, this tunic is possibly the work of the mother of the deceased or a servant who worked for her. Like spinning, weaving was perceived as the paradigm of virtue for rich and for poor. Penelope, the faithful wife of the hero Odysseus, wove while waiting for her husband, thus notionally binding the art of textile making with conjugal fidelity. The idea of the faithful wife who wove the clothes of her family was likewise popular in Rome. The Roman historian Suetonius reports that the clothes of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, were made by Octavia (his sister), Julia (his daughter), and Livia (his wife).

-Bella An

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Wooden spindle whorl. Tebtunis, Egypt, circa 27 BC-395 BCE. 6-20393.

The wooden spindle whorl was found in Tebtunis, a thriving town in Roman Egypt. Women in the ancient world were responsible for producing the clothes and other household items for the entire family, such as curtains, tablecloths, mantles, pillows, tapestries. Women busied themselves with spinning for long stretches of their days. Hence, a spinning (working) woman was a virtuous one.

-Bella An

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Etruscan terracotta figurine of a woman and child that served as a votive offering. Caere, Etruria, circa 300s BCE. 8-2543.

Like the previous entry, this terracotta figurine of a veiled woman sitting and holding a baby in her lap was discovered in a votive pit associated with the ancient Vignaccia temple within the Etruscan city of Caere. Commonly used due to their low costs, terracotta figurines embodied a prayer or a continuous physical presence of the worshipper before the deity. This figurine symbolizes motherhood and would have been offered in exchange for the protection of children and the family line. It captures a woman’s hope, frozen in time.

-Amber Soto

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Etruscan votive terracotta head of a woman with wreaths and jewelry. Caere, Etruria, circa 300s BCE. 8-6713.

This terracotta head dates to the fourth century BCE. It portrays a young woman from the neck up, wearing an intricate braided hairstyle, crown of leaves, cluster earrings, and a beaded necklace, that originally came with pendants. Along with hundreds of other such maidens, this press-molded face came to the Hearst Museum from a sanctuary in Etruscan Caere. Terracotta votives from Etruria are varied in their form and difficult to pinpoint to specific cults, but many of them concern themes of fertility, nature, youth, healing, care, and female beauty. Worshippers would bring gifts like this when they visited shrines and sanctuaries, often to request favors from the deities.

-Sofia Sylvestri

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Carnelian necklace. Tomb, Naga Ed-Der. Late Antique Egypt, circa 312–641 CE. 6-14306.

This necklace is made of a deep-red semi-precious gemstone and contains a variety of carved amulets. Some of these pieces are in the shape of the wedjat eye, a symbol of the healed eye of the Egyptian god, Horus. The wedjat eye combines a human eye and a falcon’s eye and symbolizes protection from evil as well as rebirth. Wedjat translates into “the one that is sound.” The varied shapes of the amulets of this necklace are united in their purpose: to protect the wearer from potential encounters with evil forces in her afterlife. Although this necklace was found in a late antique tomb, the individual pieces resemble amulets made in Egypt for hundreds of years prior. This could be a very old heirloom that came into the possession of someone living centuries after the necklace’s production, or possibly a mistake of the excavation record.

-Emma Kim

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