Sigma-shaped table with relief border depicting the Birth of Aphrodite and a Marine Thiasos

Images of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty, and fertility, were widespread in Egypt and the Byzantine world throughout the fourth to the seventh century. She was often associated with the Egyptian goddess Isis. Here, Aphrodite poses on a shell and wrings sea-foam from her long locks. A procession (thiasos) of fantastical sea creatures parades around the table’s border. The scene represents her birth, which was a well-known story in Greek and Roman literature. The playfulness of the compositions on the table would have delighted diners as they gathered for meals. The table was reportedly found in the Minya Province of Egypt, which was home to cosmopolitan, Greek-speaking communities such as Oxyrhynchus. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, archaeologists at Oxyrhynchus discovered Late Antique copies of classical Greek literature, including works by Aristotle and Aristophanes.