The term intaglio refers to a small image that has been engraved into a material, most commonly a gemstone. Such an artistic form has its origin in Sumer in the 4th millennium BC, with the appearance of cylinder and stamp seals, whereby decorations and patterns were engraved into soft stones. During the Hellenistic period and the early Roman Empire, the art of intaglio reached its apogee.
The subjects used for intaglios are diverse, with depictions of deities and mythical creatures being a favourite theme. This intaglio depicts the syncretic deity of Jupiter-Serapis, who was especially popular in the Roman Imperial period. Jupiter was already widely known and worshipped, the Roman king of the gods associated with thunder, lightning and storms in Ancient Roman mythology. Regarded as the equivalent to the Ancient Greek Zeus, his iconography was appropriated from the Hellenistic tradition. Throughout Italy, he was worshipped on the summit of hills, with the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill in Rome being the most important site dedicated to the god. Serapis, was a deity popular within Egypt, already a syncretic deity fused together in Ptolemaic Egypt. Serapis combined the worhip of both Osiris and the Apis bull, but appealed to the wider Greco-Egyptian community.
To find out more about intaglios, please visit our relevant blog post: Engraved Gemstones in Ancient Rome.
To discover more about Roman deities, please visit our relevant blog post: Roman Gods in Mythology
