IVORY PYX WITH DIONYSIAC SCENE, C4 CE (?). VATICAN MUSEUMS This worn and fragmented elephant ivory circular container was originally made as a cosmetics box, probably from the workshops of Alexandria which were the best in the empire. Here we see a beautiful relief scene of a Dionysiac procession of children in a woodland dance, a sort of innocent parody of an actual Bacchic nighttime party. A child in a beautifully-carved tunic at centre brandishes a tambourine as he dances in a group moving to the right. Behind him is a tree, a cantharos on the ground, and another ground of children heading around the pyx in the other direction. This container was considered splendid enough in the Middle Ages to contain one of the important relics in the heavily fortified chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum, the Holy of Holies, which was the private chapel of the medieval popes at the Lateran.
A real banger for #ReliefWednesday from the #VaticanMuseums: a C4 CE #ivory #pyx from #Egypt, with a #Dionysiac #relief on it, reused as a #reliquary in the Middle Ages in the huge locked altar of the #SanctaSanctorum at the #Lateran, the private chapel of the medieval popes. #AncientBluesky 🏺
