Head of Serapis and Apis Bull from Egypt's Lost Cities exhibit now on view at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Librar and Museum in Simi Valley, California through April 12, 2020.

Head of Serapis with Kalathos, 2nd century BCE (Ptolemaic Period) and granite statue of an Apis Bull from the Roman Period reign of Hadrian (117-138 CE) at the Egypt's Lost Cities exhibit now on view at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California through April 12, 2020.
The cult of Serapis was introduced during the third century BCE on the orders of Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his realm. There is evidence that the cult of Serapis existed before the Ptolemies came to power in Alexandria including a temple of Serapis in Egypt mentioned in 323 BCE by both Plutarch (Life of Alexander, 76) and Arrian (Anabasis, VII, 26, 2). The common assertion that Ptolemy "created" the deity is derived from sources which describe him erecting a statue of Serapis in Alexandria, the Ptolemaic capital. The cult of Serapis was then spread as a matter of deliberate policy by the Ptolemaic kings, who also built the immense Serapeum of Alexandria. Serapis continued to increase in popularity during the Roman Empire, often replacing Osiris as the consort of Isis in temples outside Egypt. Serapis was depicted as Greek in appearance but with Egyptian trappings, and combined iconography from a great many cults, signifying both abundance and resurrection. Though Ptolemy I may have created the official cult of Serapis and endorsed him as a patron of the Ptolemaic dynasty and Alexandria, Serapis was a syncretistic deity derived from the worship of the Egyptian Osiris and Apis and also gained attributes from other deities, such as chthonic powers linked to the Greek Hades and Demeter, and benevolence linked to Dionysus.



Images courtesy of Allan Gluck will be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons as I have time.

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