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Cook, Arthur B.
Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes — Cambridge, 1940

DOI Seite / Zitierlink: 
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14698#0637

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Zeus Ombrios

a statue in white crystalline marble. The god is seated on a throne
with no elbow-rests but a high back adorned at its base with tw°
large rosettes. He wears a himdtion in Olympian fashion over his
left shoulder and round his legs, which were carved in a separate
block. His right arm, to judge from its mortise, held out some
attribute, probably a thunderbolt or a phidle, hardly a Nike. His
left was raised and the hand must have rested high up on a long
sceptre. The head has abundant but irregular locks of hair and
a full beard. The forehead is marked by two deep furrows, and the
eyes are sunk beneath troubled brows. G. Mendel, after a careful
analysis of the style, concludes that we have here mediocre work °f
s. ii a.d. No doubt the sculptor aimed at being impressive and, with
that end in view, sought to combine a Pheidiac arrangement of the

. oil

drapery with Scopaic eyes and post-Lysippian hair. But above a
he—like his predecessors of Pergamon or Rhodes—relied on sheer
size. The actual height of the fragment is c. 3"20m, and it must rank
as at least the largest of all extant statues of Zeus.

It is possible that before this fusion of the Philistine Mar°aS
with the Greek Zeus there had been an earlier rapprochement oftne
Philistine god with the Hebrew Jehovah. The famous quartel
shekel of the Philisto-Arabian series, which represents J^lU &S
a solar Zeus on a wheeled and winged seat, places in his hand *
hawk(?) instead of an eagle {supra i. 232 f. fig. 171, b and ph
And a hitherto unpublished coin of the
same series, struck at Gaza in s. v B.C.,
shows for obverse design the profile head
of a grave bearded god wearing a wreath,
and for reverse a hawk and an olive-spray 38°' ^afl

(fig. 380)2. Have we here, in this obvious copy of Athen
mintage, not Athena and her owl, but Jahu and his bird? f6

At Halikarnassos rain was connected with Dionysos, fQ1 e
was a local cult of Bakchos Ombrikos, 'god of Showers.'3 The

Mas- C"*'

1 To the bibliography {supra i. 232 n. 1) add now Sir G. F. Hill in Brit- ..^tis-
Coins Palestine pp. lxxxvi ff., 181 pi. 19, 29 ('hawk'), H. Haas Bilderatlas zitr * letaoS
geschichte Leipzig—Erlangen 1926 ix—xi p. xi fig. 81 ('Falken'...'Jahwe als J-r f,ejtsClir-
oder (wahrscheinlicher, wegen der Maske) als Dionysos! (H. Gressmann, -' jeiit

f. d. alttest. Wissensch., N. F. it 1925 S. 16 f.)'), S. A. Cook The Jtehgto» >;
Palestine in the light of Archaeology London 1930 p. 147(1". pi. xxxii ("eagle 01 ^f(0.

- The coin is in my collection. On the legend ~o ='Gaza'see J. P- ^ Ce',lS

Chron. New Series 1877 xvii. 221 ff. and Sir G. F. Hill in the Brit. M"S-
Palestine p. lxxxiii ff. ( vojst^

3 Bekker anted, i. 225, if. 61 Si "O/i/fyijcos (leg. 'Ofi^piKos) inrb 'AX»««/>
'AXiKapvaaeewv) Bazoos.
 
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