Z34.3A PHORKYS & KETO

Museum Collection: Bardo Museum, Tunis, Tunisia
Catalogue Number: TBA
Type: Mosaic
Context: Trajan Baths, Acholla
Date: --
Period: Late Roman

SUMMARY

A sea god, probably Phorkys, carries a Nereid Nymphe across the sea. The red-skinned god is depicted as a merman, with coiling fish-tail and lobster-claw "feet" and horns. His arms and chest are decorated with spines. He holds a box (of salt?) in one hand and a flaming torch in the other, and is draped with a wreath of seaweed (?). The fish-tail in front of him belongs to the next figure in the train, the fish-tailed god Triton. The goddess riding on his back may be one of the Nereides or, perhaps his sea goddess wife Keto.
NB In another mosaic discovered at Antioch, a similar red-skinned sea-god with lobster-claw feet, holding a flaming torch, is labelled Phorkys in Greek lettering. He is here showing carrying a Nereid named Dynamene.

ARTICLESPhorkys, Keto, Nereides

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