Bronze statuette of Harpokrates

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Small votive figurines of Harpokrates (the infant Horus) are common, especially in Egypt where he was an important deity in local popular religion. He wears the pschent (the double crown of the Two Lands of Egypt) and carries a cornucopiae in his left arm. He is shown with his forefinger to his lips, a pose that dates back to the New Kingdom in the Late Bronze Age. It was interpreted by Roman writers as signifying secrecy with regard to the mysteries of the Egyptian cult.

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