A Statuette of Hermanubis

in the J. Paul Getty Museum

Laurent Bricault

During my first visit to the J. Paul Getty Museum, my attention was drawn to a small
bronze statue in the museum’s permanent exhibition (fig. 1). Although I had not previ-
ously been aware of this object’s existence, its iconography was familiar. The museum’s
records informed me that the piece had been published numerous times and that various
identifications had been proposed.1
The first to describe the object was Jiří Frel, who described the statuette thus:

Alexander-­Sarapis. With sandals and chlamys–short mantle–Alexander stands

holding a palm branch in his left hand. Another object, held in the right hand, is
broken off and undistinguishable. The cylindrical modius on his head is the attri-
bute of the god Serapis, widely supported by the Ptolemies, as the divine associ-
ate of their rule. The modius is here associated with another crown, partially
broken off. The luxuriant hair frames the face which maintains the basic features
of Alexander, slightly modified by the Hellenistic style.2

Moreover, Frel argued that the object was a “later image of the great ruler assimilated to
the Ptolemaic divinity” and that the statuette is “solid cast. ( . . . ) The patina and the metal
correspond to other Alexandrian bronzes.”3 The statuette is said to be from Alexandria,
but no further details as to the exact provenance are known.
In her book on Hellenistic sovereigns provided with divine attributes, Dominique
Svenson added: “Alexander d. Gr. mit Kalathos und Lotosblatt auf dem Kopf, im linken
Arm einen Palmzweig haltend. Das Attribut in der rechten Hand is verloren. Zu ergänzen
ist ein Kerykeion. (Vgl. dafür Kat. Nr. 172.).”4
Janet Burnett Grossman was, to my knowledge, the last scholar to publish the
statuette. She provided three nice pictures of the front, back, and profile, and described
the object as a

Statuette of Alexander as Agathodaimon. This small solid-­cast bronze depicts

Alexander in the guise of an Agathos Daimon. The head of Alexander, beardless
with luxuriant hair, is crowned with the modius and lotus-­leaf headdress of
Agathodaimon. The figure wears a short mantle wrapped to leave the right arm,
shoulder, and chest bare. The feet are sandaled. He holds a palm branch in his

Getty Research Journal, no. 10 (2018): 225 – 31 © 2018 Laurent Bricault

225

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Fig. 1. Statuette of Hermanubis, 2nd century ce, bronze, H.: 12.3 cm. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum,
Villa Collection, 81.AB.66.

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 left hand, while the right hand held a now-­missing attribute, probably a scepter,
to judge from the hand position. Human representations of Agathodaimon are
heavily bearded and hold a cornucopia instead of a palm branch.5

Grossman proposed a second century ce date for the object.

On closer inspection, however, it seems that these descriptions require some
adjustment, and I propose to describe the object as follows: A statuette in bronze, which
shows a young, beardless man. The figure is shown standing, and is turned three-­quarters
to the left. He is wearing strap sandals and is dressed in a himation, which covers the
upper part of the legs and the lower part of the body, and which is shown folded and slung
over the left shoulder. His curly hair, with thick strands along the neck, is crowned with
a high calathos, the front of which is adorned with a lotus petal. In his left hand he car-
ries alongside his body a palm leaf that has broken off toward the end. In his right hand,
he holds the handle of a protruding attribute that, although now missing, can only have
been a caducaeus.
Having established all this, it is time to address the identity of the figure. Although
all previous publications of the bronze statuette identified the figure in one way or
another as Alexander, there was no consensus as to the question of whether or not he
appeared in the guise of a deity and, if so, which deity this may have been.
As I noted above, Frel initially thought of Sarapis, because the figure is carrying
a calathos, but he later accepted the idea that it may instead be a representation of the
Agathos Daimon.6 And while Svenson identified the statuette only as Alexander, the iden-
tification of the Agathos Daimon recurs in the work of Grossman, albeit with the caveat
that, normally, “human representations of Agathodaimon are heavily bearded and hold
a cornucopia instead of a palm branch.”7 Finally, Renate Thomas described the statuette
as “Alexander als Hermanubis.”8
This last identification comes, in my view, closest to what the statue in actual fact
must have been. I propose to identify the figure as the god Hermanubis — a name that
we, following Porphyry (cited by Eusebius of Caesarea9 ), nowadays use to designate the
entirely anthropomorphic representation of the Hellenized god Anubis.10 This identifica-
tion is supported by a comparison with five other bronze statuettes of this type:

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 1. Former collection of Constantin Sinadino, Alexandria (fig. 2)11
A standing Hermanubis, wearing sandals and dressed in a himation that covers the
upper legs and which is folded and slung over the left shoulder. Crowned with a calathos
with a lotus petal, grasping a palm leaf with the left hand and a winged and protruding
caduceus with the right. [H.: 12 cm; prov. Alexandria].

2. Graeco-­Roman Museum of Alexandria, inv. no. 25640 (fig. 3)12

A standing Hermanubis, dressed in a himation that covers the upper parts of the
legs, and which is folded and slung over the left shoulder. Crowned with a calathos with
a lotus petal and grasping a palm leaf in the left hand. The right arm has broken off at the
shoulder. [H.: 10.5 cm; prov. Alexandria; dated 2nd–3rd century ce].

3. Art market (Royal-­Athena Galleries) (fig. 4)13

A standing Hermanubis, wearing strap-­sandals and dressed in a himation that
covers the upper parts of the legs, and which is folded and slung over the left shoulder.
Crowned with a calathos with a lotus petal and grasping a palm leaf in the left hand. In the
right hand is a winged and protruding but deformed caduceus. [H.: 13.4 cm; prov. south-
western Asia Minor].

Fig. 2. Standing Hermanubis,
ca. 2nd century ce, bronze, H.:
12 cm. Prov.: former collection Con-
stantin Sinadino, Alexandria.
Fig. 3. Standing Hermanubis,
ca. 2nd–3rd century ce, bronze,
H.: 10.5 cm. Alexandria, Graeco-­
Roman Museum of Alexandria, inv.
no. 25640.
Fig. 4. Standing Hermanubis, ca. 2nd–
3rd century ce, bronze, H.: 13.4 cm. Prov.:
southwestern Asia Minor.

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 4. National Museum Damascus (Syria), inv. no. 8170 (fig. 5)14
A standing Hermanubis, dressed in a himation that covers the upper parts of the
legs, and which is folded and slung over the left shoulder. Crowned with a calathos with
a lotus petal, and grasping a palm leaf in the left hand. In the right hand is a broken cadu-
ceus. [H.: 8.2 cm; prov. Inkhil, Syria].

5. Art market (fig. 6)15

A standing Hermanubis, wearing strap-­sandals and dressed in a himation that
covers the upper parts of the legs, and which is folded and slung over the left shoulder.
Crowned with a calathos with a lotus petal, and grasping a palm leaf in the left hand; in
the right hand is a winged and protruding but deformed caduceus. [H.: 8.8 cm; unknown
provenance; dated ca. 2nd century ce].

Fig. 5. Standing Hermanubis, ca. 2nd–3rd century ce, bronze. H.: Fig. 6. Standing Hermanubis, ca. 2nd
8.2 cm. Prov.: Inkhil, Syria. Damascus, Syria, National Museum Damas- century ce, bronze, H.: 8.8 cm. Provenance
cus, inv. no. 8170. unknown. Bonhams, Auction 11365 (28 October
2004), no. 63.

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 The first images of a completely anthropomorphic, standing Hermanubis are
found on Alexandrian coins16 from Domitian’s year 11 (91/2 ce).17 Production of such
coins is resumed under Trajan, and they are common during the second and third cen-
turies, until 295/6 ce, when the provincial mint at Alexandria was closed by Diocletian.18
The god is sometimes shown in a temple (from the time of Trajan onward), or is reduced
to a bust (from the reign of Hadrian onward).19 It seems that the image of the god was
exclusively used by the Alexandrian mint.20
In constructing the iconography of a completely anthropomorphic Anubis, art-
ists during the Flavian period without any doubt selected various elements: the Egyptian
palm, a symbol of eternity and a sign of victory,21 the caduceus of Hermes, the psycho-
pomp Greek deity who more or less corresponded to the Egyptian god Anubis, 22 and a
youthful appearance that, clearly, was not unlike Alexander’s.23
In conclusion, we can state that there are a total of at least six remarkably similar,
bronze statuettes of Hermanubis (and not Alexander), all with an anthropomorphic, Hel-
lenized appearance, that were probably created in Alexandria during the Flavian period.
As a consequence, we may now state with certainty that the bronze statuette at the J. Paul
Getty Museum is not a product of the Hellenistic era but instead was made in the second
or third century ce.

Laurent Bricault is a professor of Roman history at the Université Toulouse II Jean-­Jaurès, and
member of the Institut Universitaire de France.

Notes
I would like to thank all those who have facilitated and supported my research during my stay
at the Getty Villa, especially Jeffrey Spier, Roselyn Campbell, and Jorrit Kelder, who translated this paper
from the French.
1. The J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. 81.AB.66 (presented by Mr. B. Sarner): H. 12.3 cm. Jiří Frel,
Greek Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1981), 70–71 and 113, no. 24
bis; Dominique Svenson, Darstellungen hellenistischer Könige mit Götterattributen (Frankfurt: Lang, 1995),
pp. 74, 244, 393, no. 171, pl. 33.1; and Janet Burnett Grossman, “Images of Alexander the Great in the Getty
Museum,” in Studia Varia from the J. Paul Getty Museum, vol. 2, Occasional Papers on Antiquities 10 (Los
Angeles: Getty Publications, 2001), 60–61, no. 6, figs. 6a–c.
2. Frel, Greek Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum, 71.
3. Frel, Greek Portraits in the J. Paul Getty Museum, 70, 113.
4. Svenson, Darstellungen hellenistischer Könige mit Götterattributen, 244. The cat. no. 172 in Sven-
son’s reference corresponds to the statuette from the former collection Sinadino, published by Theodor
Schreiber in 1903; see this essay, statuette no. 1 (fig. 2).
5. Grossman, “Images of Alexander the Great in the Getty Museum,” 61.
6. Jiří Frel, “Alexander with the Lance,” in Jacques Chamay and Jean-­Louis Maier, eds., Lysippe
et son influence, Hellas et Roma 5 (Geneva: Association Hellas et Roma, 1987), 79n14: “another bronze
statuette of Egyptian origin was thought to represent also Alexander but H. Kunckel pointed out that it is
an Agathos Daimon.”
7. Grossman, “Images of Alexander the Great in the Getty Museum,”61.
8. Renate Thomas, Eine postume Statuette Ptolemaios’ IV. und ihr historischer Kontext: Zur Göt-
terangleichung hellenistischer Herrscher, Trierer Winckelmannsprogramme 18 (Mainz: Von Zabern, 2001),
10–11. In the notes for this identification (at 68nn110–11), Thomas refers to, apart from the piece from the

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 Getty, a small bronze statue first published in 1903 by Schreiber (see this essay, statuette no. 1 [fig. 2]), but
then confounds this with a piece from the Graeco-­Roman Museum at Alexandria, inv. no. MGR 2564 [sic]
(see this essay, statuette no. 2 [fig. 3]).
9. Porphyry, De imaginibus, frag. 8, ap. Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica, 3.11.43.
10. Most clearly demonstrated by Jean-­Claude Grenier, s.v. “Hermanubis,” in Lexicon Icono-
graphicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), vol. V.1 (Zürich-­München: Artemis, 1990), 265–68, with refer-
ences to Grenier, Anubis alexandrin et romain (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 171–75; see also Michel Malaise, Pour
une terminologie et une analyse des cultes isiaques (Brussels: Académie Royale de Belgique, 2005), 156–57
and 187–88; and esp. Malaise, “Anubis et Hermanubis à l’époque gréco-­romaine: Who’s who?,” in Laurent
Bricault and Richard Veymiers, eds., Bibliotheca Isiaca, vol. 3 (Bordeaux: Ausonius, 2014), 73–93.
11. Theodor Schreiber, Studien über das Bildnis Alexanders des Grossen: Ein Beitrag zur alexan-
drinischen Kunstgeschichte, mit einem Anhang über die Anfänge des Alexanderkultus, Abhandlungen der
Philologisch-­historischen Klasse der kgl. sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften 21, 3 (Leipzig:
Teubner, 1903), 145, (fig. 12) (chap. 13: “Alexander mit der Aegis, als Herakles und Hermes,” 138–49); Salo-
mon Reinach, “Une statuette de bronze représentant Alexandre le Grand (Collection de M. Edmond de
Rothschild),” Revue archéologique, 4th ser., vol. 5 (1905): 36, fig. 3; Otto Rubensohn, “Griechische-­römische
Funde in Ägypten,” Archäologischer Anzeiger Beiblatt zum JDAI 20 (1905): 68; Paul Perdrizet, Bronzes grecs
d’Egypte de la coll. Fouquet (Paris: Bibliothèque d’Art et d’Archéologie, 1911), 29–30; and Grenier, “Herma-
nubis,” 267, no. 20.
12. Achille Adriani, Annuaire du Musée Gréco-­Romain, vol. 3, 1935–1939 (Alexandria, 1940), 143
(no. 1) and 140 (pl. I.3); Grenier, “Hermanubis,” 267, no. 21; and LIMC, vol. V.2, pl. 190, no. 21.
13. Royal-­Athena Galleries, Art of the Ancient World XIV (New York and London: Royal-­Athena
Galleries, 2003), no. 45; Laurent Bricault, “Une statuette d’Hermanubis pour Arès,” in Laurent Bricault
and Richard Veymiers, eds., Bibliotheca Isiaca, vol. 2 (Bordeaux: Ausonius, 2011), 131–35, figs. 1–2.
14. Thomas M. Weber, with Q. al-­Mohammed, Sculptures from Roman Syria in the Syrian National
Museum at Damascus, vol. 1 (Worms: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 2006), 39, no. 17, pl. 13A–D; and
Bricault, “Une statuette d’Hermanubis pour Arès,” 133 and fig. 3.
15. Bonhams, Auction 11365 (28 October 2004), no. 63; and Malaise, “Anubis et Hermanubis,”
fig. 16, p. 92.
16. On the iconography of Hermanubis, see Grenier, “Hermanubis”; Soheir Bakhoum, Dieux
égyptiens à Alexandrie sous les Antonins: recherches numismatiques et historiques (Paris: CNRS, 1999), 160–66;
Bricault, “Une statuette d’Hermanubis pour Arès,” 131; and Malaise, “Anubis et Hermanubis,” 88–92.
17. Laurent Bricault, ed., Sylloge Nummorum Religionis Isiacae et Sarapiacae (SNRIS) (Paris: De
Boccard, 2008), 76; and Alexandria 44, 50; and Bricault, “Une statuette d’Hermanubis pour Arès,” 133.
18.
SNRIS, Alexandria 718.
19. In a temple: SNRIS, Alexandria 93 (from Trajan’s regnal year 13 onward = 109/10 ce); as a bust:
SNRIS, Alexandria 163a (from Hadrian’s regnal year 10 onward = 125/6 ce).
20. Note however that the image of Hermanubis is found on a number of gems; see Richard
Veymiers, Ἵλεως τῷ φοροῦντι. Sérapis sur les gemmes et les bijoux antiques (Brussels: Académie Royale de
Belgique, 2009), 155–57, esp. 156n597, for a comprehensive list.
21. Malaise, “Anubis et Hermanubis,” 78–79.
22. Malaise, “Anubis et Hermanubis,” 78.
23. Compare, for example, the bust of Marianne, the incarnation of the French Republic, who,
from 1968 to 1978, had the face of the well-known actress Brigitte Bardot. Arslan, the sculptor who created
this bust, and his institutional sponsors surely did not intend it to be a representation of Brigitte Bardot
as a personification of the Republic but rather an allegory of the Republic taking the general shape and
appearance of one of its most famous children.

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