Images

A scene from a stone Etruscan sarcophagus showing a drinking party. Chiusi, 6th century BCE. (Staatliche Museum, Berlin)

A scene from a stone Etruscan funerary urn depicting a banquet scene. Chiusi, 5th century BCE. (British Museum, London)

An Egyptian apotropaic knife made from a hippopotamus tusk and designed to ward off evil in a nursery. (Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago)

A faience amulet of the Egyptian protective deity Bes. Egypt, 950-700 BCE. (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, USA)

A serpentinite and gold heart scarab pendant. Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, Tomb of Hatnefer and Ramose, Mummy of Hatnefer. Thebes. Egypt, 18th Dynasty, c. 1492-1473 BCE. The text inscribed on the back of the scarab calls for Hatnefer's heart not...

Detail of the temple wall, Esna, Egypt. The temple was dedicated to the triad of Latopolis.

Temple dedicated to the triad of Latopolis. Esna, Egypt.

Marble statue of Scylla, a monstrous sea goddess who haunted the rocks of a narrow strait opposite the whirlpool daemon Charybdis (Kharybdis). Ships that sailed too close to her rocks would lose six men to her ravenous, darting heads. The...

Amazonomachy, detail, late 2nd to early 3rd century CE, front and side of a sarcophagus, Roman. Pentelic marble. Exhibit in the Sackler Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. The museum permitted photography of this...

A silver coin from Agrigento depicting Scylla the monster from Greek mythology thought to inhabit the straits between Sicily and the Italian mainland. 5th century BCE. (British Museum, London)