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Pergamon, Mysia, c. 123 - 104 B.C.
The cista mystica was a basket used for housing sacred snakes in connection with the initiation ceremony into the cult of Bacchus (Dionysus). In the Dionysian mysteries a snake, representing the god and possibly symbolic of his phallus, was carried in a cista mystica on a bed of vine leaves. The cista in the mysteries of Isis may also have held a serpent, perhaps associated with the missing phallus of Osiris. The thyrsus is the staff carried by Bacchus and his associates; topped by a pine cone or a bunch of ivy leaves and wreathed with tendrils of vine or ivy.GS81783. Silver cistophoric tetradrachm, Kleiner Pergamum 6, Pinder 100, SNG Cop 423, SNG BnF 1712, SNGvA -, BMC Mysia -, nice VF, toned, Pergamon (Bergama, Turkey) mint, weight 12.514g, maximum diameter 32.2mm, die axis 0o, c. 123 - 104 B.C.; obverse cista mystica with half open lid, from which a snake emerges left, all within wreath of ivy leaves and berries; reverse bow-case ornamented with an apluster, flanked on each side by a snake with head erect, monogram (control) above between heads of snakes, straps from case draped over snakes below, Pergamon monogram to left, snake entwined thyrsos to right; SOLD
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