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Monumentum

Bronze Aion figure with lion head from Rome

Small bronze figure from Rome, probably used as a handle for a patera or knife, depicting the lion-headed Aion with four large wings, entwined in three coils of a serpent, holding a torch in his right hand and a key in his left.
 
The New Mithraeum
Updated on May 2026

TNMM 1110 ↔ CIMRM 589

Small bronze figure (H. 0.11), which served as a handle of a patera (Zoega) or a knife (Lajard). For a long time at an antiquarian's in Rome, later bought by Comte Pourtalès-Géorgier (1845).

Zoega, Abh., 206 No. 10; MMM II 236f No. 75.

A figure with a lion's head and four large wings. The lower part of his body consists, from the stomach downwards, of a square bar. A scaled serpent winds itself in three coils round the handle and Aion's body and rests its crested head on the god's. The latter presses his hands tightly against his breast and holds in his r.h. a torch and in his l.h. a key. According to Lajard however, this torch should be a knife and in the god's mouth there should be a thunderbolt.

References

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