Artefact Porn

Block from a limestone frieze carved in high relief of Leda and the Swan, made from 400-500 AD, probably from a woman’s tomb at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. It is now located in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, United Kingdom. (4032×3024) [OC]

September 25, 2024

Leda, wife of King Tyndaeus of Sparta, is raped by the god Zeus in the form of a swan. Two nymphs hold eggs, symbolising the conception of Leda's children Helen of Troy, Clytemnestra, and Castor and Pollux. This pagan myth remained popular in early Christian Egypt for memorials to fertile married women.

Here is information on the sculpture on the museum website: https://www.ashmolean.org/collections-online#/item/ash-object-451086

by Lettered_Olive

Add A Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Block from a limestone frieze carved in high relief of Leda and the Swan, made from 400-500 AD, probably from a woman’s tomb at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. It is now located in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, United Kingdom. (4032×3024) [OC]

The largest known worked blocks of stone were found near Baalbek (in Lebanon). It is about the so-called trilitons, i.e. three boulders from the vicinity of the sanctuary from the period of Roman rule in this area. [1200×900]

Tooled leather medicine case used by a Dr. John Kennedy, c. 1815. [2911×2218]

An archaic grave marker of a young Greek, which was made in the middle of the 6th century BCE. The original height of the grave monument is assumed to have been around 4.5 m. Now housed at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens [1932×4222]