Antiquities Exhibits

 A gorytos is a type of leather case for a short composite bow and arrows used by the Scythians in classical antiquity. They are a combination of bow case and quiver in one, and are worn on the archer's left hip with the opening tilted rearward. Many gorytos were highly decorated and sometimes gilded. At least one surviving specimen was determined by scanning electron microscope to be made of human skin. Some have been found in Macedonian tombs, such as the tomb of Philip II in Macedon in Vergina of the 2nd half of the 4th century BCE. It is thought to have belonged to his sixth wife, the Thracian princess Meda of of Odessos, who hurled herself on his funeral pyre.  Her remains were found in the antechamber of Philip's tomb.  They were also used by the Persians. Indo-Greeks adopted the composite bow and the gorytos as part of their mounted archery equipment from around 100 BCE, as can be seen on their coins. In his 1913 book, Scythians and Greeks: A Survey of Ancient Hist...

Ivory and gold miniature of the Thracian deity Sabazios from the Tomb of Alexander IV, 311 BCE in Aigai, Macedonia. According to the Archaeological Museum of Aigai, the garments worn by this half-man, half-plant demon-like figure point to Sabazios, a Thracian deity identified with Dionysos.  This hybrid creature, with both Greek and Oriental features, is typical of art of the Hellenistic Period (323-31 BCE).  Celebrating the coexistence and synthesis of different cultures, it reflects the unity Alexander imposed on his empire. This miniature was part of the rich decoration on a couch found in Alexander IV's tomb.  Alexander IV, the son of Alexander the Great, with a Macedonian father and Bactrian mother, was a good example of this unity.  Sadly, he was assassinated at the age of only 12 (others say 14), before he could take his father's throne by an officer of his father's Companion cavalry on the orders of Cassander.  His tomb is thought to be among the royal t...