The God Aion in a Mosaic from Nea Paphos (Cyprus) and Graeco-Phoenician Cosmogonies in the Roman East
This essay offers a new interpretive angle on a fourth-century CE mosaic from Nea Paphos in Cyprus, in which the central panel depicts the god Aion presiding over the contest between Kassiopeia and the Nereids. The mosaic, which has other mythological scenes, two of them focused on Dionysos, has bee...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
[2020]
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| In: |
Archiv für Religionsgeschichte
Year: 2020, Volume: 21/22, Issue: 1, Pages: 423-447 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Roman Empire
/ Religion
/ Paphos
/ Eon, God
/ Greece (Antiquity)
/ Phoenicia
/ Cosmogony
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| IxTheo Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion BE Greco-Roman religions |
| Further subjects: | B
Religionswissenschaften
B Theologie und Religion B Altertumswissenschaften B Antike Religionsgeschichte B Klassische Altertumswissenschaften |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This essay offers a new interpretive angle on a fourth-century CE mosaic from Nea Paphos in Cyprus, in which the central panel depicts the god Aion presiding over the contest between Kassiopeia and the Nereids. The mosaic, which has other mythological scenes, two of them focused on Dionysos, has been interpreted in an allegorical Neoplatonic key or else as encrypting an anti-Christian polemic narrative. Here I propose that Aion and the other cosmogonic motifs in the panels, including the birth and triumph of Dionysos, point rather to Orphic and Phoenician cosmogonies, which in turn had a strong impact and reception among Neoplatonists and intellectuals of the Roman and late Roman Levant. |
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| ISSN: | 1868-8888 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Archiv für Religionsgeschichte
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1515/arege-2020-0022 |