LATE HELLENISTIC PERIOD, CIRCA 1ST CENTURY B.C.

Two heads side by side, known as jugate (from the Latin capita iugata) were used for depictions of deities as well as for royal portraits on gems and coins during the Hellenistic period, especially in Ptolemaic Egypt. Serapis and Isis were a frequent pairing (see for example the garnet in Chicago, no. 368 in D. Plantzos, Hellenistic Engraved Gems). Close in style to the present example is a garnet in Berlin depicting, as here, Zeus Ammon with a female deity, identifiable on that gem as personification of Libya on account of the corkscrew locks falling onto her cheeks (no. 572 Plantzos, op. cit.). While the female head on the gem presented here does not have the so-called Libyan locks, she does share with that deity the crescentic diadem. The gem is mounted as a ring in a late 19th century gold setting.