Dissertation sur le Culte Religieux
Picart, Bernard, 1673-1733
A series of four engravings depicting aspects of religious rituals and practices from ancient Mediterranean cultures, including Greek, Roman, and Egyptian. The engraving on the top right depicts a supplicant praying before a temple of Pomona, the Latin and Roman goddess of fruit trees, gardens, and orchards, who is depicted to the supplicant's left. The engraving on the top left depicts four medallions, the top one showing Pomona holding a tree as another figure kneels to scoop water into a vessel, and the remaining three showing vestments and other objects used in the Lustration rites of ritual cleansing. The engraving on the bottom right depicts another four medallions, the top one showing sacrifices being made to Hercules by worshipers, the middle two shows Emperor Severus veiled and holding an olive branch and a veiled woman before an altar, and the bottom one shows the bust of a man wearing a Phrygian cap. The engraving on the bottom left depicts three medallions and two coins, the top left medallion showing the owl of Athena ringed by a laurel wreath, the top right medallion showing Anubis enthroned with a supplicant prostrating before him, the middle medallion showing three worshipers around a Greek- or Roman-style altar, and the two coins showing a man galloping on a horse and throwing a javellin at a kneeling foe (left) and a man standing with an orb and Victory in one hand and the other hand reaching down to a kneeling figure (right).
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