Figure of Isis-Aphrodite

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Isis-Aphrodite is a form of the great goddess Isis that emphasizes the fertility aspects associated with Aphrodite. She was concerned with marriage and childbirth and, following very ancient pharaonic prototypes, also with rebirth. Elaborate accessories, including an exaggerated calathos (the crown of Egyptian Greco-Roman divinities) emblazoned with a tiny disk and horns of Isis, heighten the effect of her nudity. Figures depicting this goddess are found in both domestic and funerary contexts. Popular already in the 3rd to 2nd centuries B.C., they continued to be made in Roman times. Dating technology places this piece in the Roman period, probably about AD 150, and the long narrow face and rather dry expression do not contradict such a date.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art