Cleveland Museum of Art (Egyptian) · textile
Ornamental Square from a Tunic
Description
[Egypt, Byzantine period] This mythological scene of the first labor of Hercules––capturing the Nemean lion––originally decorated the front, back, or shoulder of a unisex linen tunic. Hercules was tasked with performing 12 labors as penance for slaying his own wife and children. Here he carries a club with a lion skin slung over his shoulder, serving as impenetrable armor. His companion, Iolaus, carries his bow and quiver on the right. The small figure in the center is unidentified. Knotted ornaments fill the corners, surrounded by a broad purple border edged with a running wave motif.
Cross-references (2)
- Wikidata Q79934257 tier-1
- CMA-id 151053 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Cleveland Museum of Art (Egyptian).
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.