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Terracotta protome of Dionysos

 

Height: 31.000 cm

GR 1874.3-5.71 (Terracotta 874)

Room 19: Greece: Athens

    Terracotta protome of Dionysos

    Greek, about 350 BC
    From Tanagra, Boeotia, Greece

    Dionysos with a cock and an egg

    The god Dionysos can be recognized by two of his characteristic attributes, the cock and the egg. Dionysos was a god of the underworld, as well as of wine and the theatre, and eggs and cocks were popular offerings to underworld deities because of their evocations of life and fertility.

    This type of bust, called a protome, was made by pressing a thin layer of terracotta into a single mould. The earliest known examples were made in the Greek East, especially on the island of Rhodes, but from the early fifth century BC onwards they were also made at Tanagra and elsewhere in mainland Greece. The colours on this example are very striking and exceptionally well-preserved.

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