Limestone Bes

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The figure preserves the body and upper part of the legs of a nude Bes. His body is shown in three-quarter view, with the left leg advancing forward and the right leg drawn backwards. The genitalia are broken. Both arms are missing. With his raised right arm he was probably brandishing a feather-sword (?). A tenon on his chest supported the object held in one of the hands. He has a large head, a flat face, a grooved beard, a thick flat nose, a large mouth, a drawn out tongue and two small horns. His mass of hair is grooved and falls down his back and on his shoulders. The face and body are pink and the tongue red.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.

Metropolitan Museum of Art