Salvador Vilaseca Archaeology Museum

Cybele

Sculpture of Cybele, Roman villa of Antigons (Reus), 2nd century BC, marble. Photo by IMMR archive. Salvador Vilaseca Archaeology Museum.

 

Sculpture of Cybele, Roman villa of Antigons (Reus), 2nd century BC, marble. Photo by IMMR archive. Salvador Vilaseca Archaeology Museum.

 

A standing female figure flanked by two lions, on a rectangular pedestal. Wearing a tunic tied below the breast, she wears a pearl collar and is missing her head, right arm and part of the left. The lions’ front legs are straight and they are supported by their back legs (the bodies are too short because the piece is very narrow). It represents Cybele, the goddess of Phrygian origin adopted by Rome in the period of the republic. The most common iconographic depiction has the goddess seated between two guardian lions. It was carved to take advantage of an architectural moulding.

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