Keyword

Alpak ID

Date

Findspot

Material

Category

Language

Archive/Collection

ALpak ID:

AL3

Description:

This early sixteenth-century engraving represents the culmination of late medieval demonic hierarchography. Astaroth, identified in grimoire tradition as a great duke of Hell, receives appropriately noble treatment: throne, crown, and scepter assert status within infernal bureaucracy. The Renaissance influence is evident in proportional relationships and architectural framing. Classical columns support the demonic throne, suggesting continuity between pagan and demonic realms that contemporary demonologists debated extensively. Anatomical distortions follow systematic logic rather than arbitrary monstrosity. The reversed joints, the extra limbs, the hybrid features each carry specific meanings within the elaborate symbolic system of Renaissance demonology.

Archive/Collection:

British Museum

Date:

6th–7th Century CE

Findspot:

Athens

Current Location:

Milan, Italy

Provenance:

Gift of the Kaufman Collection, 1982.

Category:

Demon

Material:

Clay

Language:

Greek

Script:

Square Aramaic

Bibliography:

Isbell, C.D. (1975), Corpus of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls, Text 22.

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