Cup depicting scene of Isiac cult (6054)

Cup depicting scene of Isiac cult (6054)

Rounded, flared rim, ovoid body, ring-shaped foot, covered by a sheet with embossed decoration. The scene depicts the cult of Isis and represents a bald priest carrying a container for holding sacred water from the Nile to the goddess Isis, who carries in her bent arm a statuette of the Falcon god Sokaris, depicted standing on a small base. In front of her, on an altar, there is a vase upon which there is the god Horus. An arch supported by naked Caryatids, through which it is possible to see a series of steps with palms representing the sacred area, completes the scene. The presence of the two cups (the other example also kept in the Naples Archaeological Museum has the invoice number inv. 6044) with Isiac scenes, near to a body in the Large Palaestra suggests that the fleeing man was an initiate of the Isiac cults, possibly from the nearby Casa di Loreius Tiburtinus, actually the house of Octavius Quartio (II, 2, 2) or from the Praedia of Julia Felix (II, 4), where important evidence of the cult of Isis has been discovered. Among the various cups found in Campania, these two cups represent an example of sacred, rather than household, furnishings.