Cybele/Ceres. Rome, II-IV centuries AD.

Cybele/Ceres. Rome, 2nd-4th century A.D.
Carved sandstone.
In good state of preservation, although it has lost the head and part of the upper limbs and base. It also has some dents in the mantle. It has been cleaned and consolidated.
Measurements: 42 x 24 x 17 cm.
We recognize Ceres in this sandstone figure thanks to the lion that escorts her at her feet. The goddess used to carry a cornucopia or a sheaf of wheat in her left hand. This could be our case, although we can not say for sure because it has been lost and only an imprint remains. The right hand, also missing, was resting on the chest and we do not know if it would hold any of the other attributes (patera, the tympanum or the royal scepter). Although it is not preserved, the goddess could wear on her head the thuriferous crown as protector goddess of the cities or the kalathos as protector of agriculture. The Phrygian goddess Cybele, mother of the gods and of all living beings, called by the Romans Magna Mater (The Great Mother) is the Roman goddess of fertility, earth and agriculture. The phenomenon of syncretism, by which a foreign god was assimilated to another of the Greek-Roman pantheon, facilitated the spread of these cults. Cybele was assimilated by the Romans with the goddesses Rhea and Ceres (Demeter). In practice they were considered the same divinity. This representation therefore alludes directly to the goddess Ceres, ancient "mother goddess", worshipped in Hellenic lands even before the establishment of the "Olympian" religion, Ceres is considered the protector of agriculture, of the rebirth of nature, of marriage and "bearer of the seasons", due to the myth that stars with her daughter Persephone, taken to the underworld by Hades during part of the year, which coincides with the winter. Ceres was worshipped by the Romans under the name of Ceres, from which precisely derives the etymology of "cereal".