The dog days of summer are almost behind us! Despite what the name suggests, they were never really about dogs struggling through the heat.
The phrase comes from Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major. In the ancient Mediterranean world, Sirius’s appearance in the summer sky became associated with the season’s most intense heat.
This tiny garnet ring stone, made sometime between the 1st century BCE and 3rd century CE, depicts the head of Sirius—a fitting artifact for the final days of one of summer’s oldest expressions.
Image: Garnet Ring Stone with the Head of the Dog Sirius, 1st century BCE–3rd century CE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
