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Lot Essay
The circular stone has a convex face and a concave back, and is engraved with a cockfight, with a groundline below. The cock to the right stands upright, while the cock to the left has its head lowered. Behind them, atop a column, is a phallus-bird, with a palm branch, symbolic of victory, leaning to the right.
Confronting cocks make their first appearance on gems in the 4th century B.C. on one face of a Greco-Persian carnelian prism, pl. 861 in J. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings. Close in style to the gem presented here is an amethyst ringstone in the Hermitage, attributed to the workshop of the engraver Aulos, where the composition is in reverse and features a herm instead of a phallus-bird on a column (see no. 107 in O. Neverov, Antique Intaglios). The phallus-bird makes its first appearance in Greek art circa 600 B.C. on a Parian pottery dish from Delos, and became more popular in Athens later in the 6th century on vases, chiefly red-figured, through the late 5th century (see J. Boardman, "The Phallos-Bird in Archaic and Classical Greek Art," Revue Archéologique, 1992, fasc. 2, pp. 227-242).
Confronting cocks make their first appearance on gems in the 4th century B.C. on one face of a Greco-Persian carnelian prism, pl. 861 in J. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings. Close in style to the gem presented here is an amethyst ringstone in the Hermitage, attributed to the workshop of the engraver Aulos, where the composition is in reverse and features a herm instead of a phallus-bird on a column (see no. 107 in O. Neverov, Antique Intaglios). The phallus-bird makes its first appearance in Greek art circa 600 B.C. on a Parian pottery dish from Delos, and became more popular in Athens later in the 6th century on vases, chiefly red-figured, through the late 5th century (see J. Boardman, "The Phallos-Bird in Archaic and Classical Greek Art," Revue Archéologique, 1992, fasc. 2, pp. 227-242).