Attachments with the Mistress of Animals in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, August 2007

Attachments with the Mistress of Animals and Waterbirds
Bronze
Western Phoenicia
7th-6th Century BC

Accession # 1999.80 a,b

The female figure with Hathor-like curls and a lotiform necklace holds waterbirds with large, curving wings. Their outline creates a form suggestive of ship imagery appropriate to both the Levant and the Celtic world (where it was often combined with a solar disc.) The double loops at the back of these objects suggest that they were horse trappings.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.