Ancient Animal Art

Spring-fresco from Akrotiri (Thera) 16th century BCE as seen in the Heraklion Museum Athens

Beautifully-observed & realistic figure of a sleeping Antelope incised on rock up to 10,000 years ago at Tin Taghirt, Tassili n'Ajjer in Algeria, one of the largest & most important groupings of prehistoric cave art in the world.

Didrachm (reverse) - 8.6 grams silver - Eretria, Greece - 500-480 BCE 

Tetradrachm - 17.2 grams silver - Eretria, Greece - 500-490 BCE

Litra - .87 grams silver - Syracuse, Sicily - 460-450 BCE 

Socrates (Greek, 469–399 BCE) could have handled any of these coins and asked why they depicted an octopus — or what values they represented …

In the 5th century BCE the value of a litra was equivalent to the value of a pound of bronze, while the value of a didrachm (two drachmas) was considered to be about the value of two days wages for the average worker in antiquity.

The Hinds of Chaffaud, found in the Grotte de Chaffaud (Savigné, Vienne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine).  It is from the Upper Paleolithic Period, made from a reindeer foot-bone, and is 13.2cm in length.

Apulian Frog Guttus, 4th century BC, Cleveland Museum of Art: Greek and Roman Art

Size: Diameter: 1.5 cm (9/16 in.); Overall: 5.8 x 11.2 x 9.1 cm (2 5/16 x 4 7/16 x 3 9/16 in.) Medium: pottery with black slip and added white

From the area of Pilsen-Radčice, ceramic zoomorph vessel, hallstatt urnfield culture (800-560BC)

Square Duck Pond, 1st–early 3rd century, Metropolitan Museum of Art: Asian Art

Charlotte C. and John C. Weber Collection, Gift of Charlotte C. and John C. Weber, 1994 Size: H. 2 ¾ in. (7 cm); D. 12 in. (30.5 cm) Medium: Earthenware with green lead glaze

Griffin Atop Entablature, 1-100, Cleveland Museum of Art: Greek and Roman Art

Size: Overall: 37.2 x 44.1 cm (14 5/8 x 17 3/8 in.) Medium: fresco fragment

A larnax, or chest, made to contain human remains, from Crete.