The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Special Exhibitions: Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul

Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul


Statuette of the god Harpocrates, 1st–2nd century A.D. Afghanistan, Begram Bronze; H. 9 1/2 in. (24.1 cm) National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul, 04.1.101 Photo: © Thierry Ollivier / Musée Guimet

This superb bronze statuette belongs to a group of bronze objects bearing classical subjects that was imported from the Roman Mediterranean, probably Egypt and Italy. The child shown here with his finger to his mouth represents Harpocrates, the Hellenized form of the Egyptian god Horus, son of Isis and Osiris. The soft modeling and the curve of the body derive from the style of the fourth-century-B.C. Greek sculptor Praxiteles. Together with glassware from Alexandria, the bronzes are evidence of an active long-distance maritime trade. Sea routes connected the Mediterranean to the Far East through the Indian Ocean when Afghanistan, under the Kushan dynasty, was one of the major powers of the ancient world.