Una gemma magica con “cavalieri Danubiani”

Abstract

In this article a magical gem in lapis lazuli is analyzed. It is engraved on both sides and bears an inscription running along the oblique edge. The main side of the gem is divided in 3 sectors where the engraved symbols recall the iconographies well known through the corpus of the Danubian stele: a goddess between two riders; a ritual banquet; a bipodia flanked by two worshipping female figures. Gems with these particular iconographies are very rare and this lapis lazuli can be compared for the complexity of the scenes only with a cornelian gem preserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Wien. The symbols on the other side of the gem are connected to the magical and Gnostic pseudo-Egyptian cultural panorama, as confirmed by the snake Chnoubis around the neck of the bird (Ibis?) depicted standing on a crocodile. It is not difficult to find comparisons among the magical gems for the single elements engraved on the lapis lazuli. Finally, Greek letters are engraved on the large edge of the gem: * CWBAPP — IKVPBH; they are divided by a star realized in a fracture suffered by the stone; in exergue there are the letters IAW in engraved double cartouche. The fact that the solar symbol which divides the Gnostic legend was engraved in the breakage could confirm that the side with the scene of Danubian riders was carved before the other one with magical-Gnostic symbols. Probably the gem was reused with magical purpose between the 2nd and the 3rd century AD.