Painted vases of the Free-field style dating to the seventh century BC are among the most original products of Cypriot artists. Operating with a limited number of primary motifs, such as solar discs or floral signs, they create a new compositional type, multi-level and including both animal and human figures. The most common subject-matter of this painting seems to be the World Tree flanked by adorants. These images find parallels among the other Archaic Cypriot vases representing the so-called Sacred Garden, with goddesses carrying libation jugs and inhaling the aroma of lotus flowers. Probably such scenes convey the concept of new birth owing to the goddesses performing the libation ritual.

In this article the degree of influence of Egyptian pottery traditions on Meroitic ceramics is analyzed on the basis of the ceramic material discovered by the joint Italian-Russian archaeological mission in its investigation of the temple and administrative complex of centuries I-III AD in Abu Erteila (Sudan). The possibility is raised that both the forms of the vessels and their decoration were borrowed, carrying both aesthetic and symbolic significance, Considering the existence in the Meroitic Period of several ceramic traditions in pottery (local Nubian, Egyptian, and Hellenistic), suggestions are made about the ways, methods and reasons why types of Egyptian craft products were borrowed in the Meroitic Kingdom.

The earliest image of a hip herm occurs on the coins of Kroton (420-376 ВС). All extant sculptures of this type were made later. One of the earliest examples - an asymmetric double-sided herm from the Taman Peninsular, which according to its inscription was dedicated to Aphrodite Urania, the Lady of Apatur (Sanctuary), by Demarchos son of Skythos in the reign of Leukonos (389/388-349/348 BC). The closest analogy to the draped figure is represented by the famous herm from Rhamnous (323 BC) which carries an ephebic dedication. Another double-sided herm with the same rare asymmetric form was found in the Athenian Agora. E. Harrison very carefully interpreted the statue as Late Hellenistic or Early Roman because of its unusual traits, but comparison with the dedication by Demarchos suggests that the herm from the Agora could possibly be dated earlier.

Pausanias had different ways of describing herms and hip herms. He referred to hip herms as statues. The style of hip herms is usually free of archaic elements. In the second century BC there were attempts to represent copies of statues as herms. J. Marcade has described the iconography of herms of Harpocrates on Delos. Herms of Heracles with his cornucopia seem to be replicas based on a Hellenstic original. Another type of herm with the figure of Heracles covered in a lion's skin is represented on four funeral stelai from Smirna and Halicarnassos. These herms are similar to replicas of Hellenistic statues of the aged Heracles (Cavala type) and may originate from the same prototype.

The article is based on archaeological materials excavated from the Roman necropoleis at the Ilouraton Plateau (Eastern Crimea). The author attempts to specify the semantics of terracotta figurines discovered in burial and memorial complexes. His approach clarifies their significance as mediators or agents in rituals connected with crossing, or being moved across, the boundary between the world of living human beings, and the Underworld. At one and the same time, the items under consideration give us a wider conception of the highest female deity, which, as we know from previously studied material, the inhabitants of the Bosphorus continued to worship during the early centuries of the Christian era.

This study attempts to trace the origin of the iconography of an Early Christian scene, Jonah under the Gourd Vine, which used to be a most popular subject in the centuries III—IV AD. According to many scholars, the prophet's iconography derived from pagan scenes such as Endimion's dream. In the meantime, this convincing hypothesis does not explain the origin of the second sine qua non iconographic element of the episode — a gourd vine entwining a pergola. The El-Wardian paintings have been loosely dated from III BC through IV AD, but the study argues for the first century BC as its most likely date. The entrance of the gourd vine motif into the scene can be traced to the Greek translation of the Bible — the Septuagint, which was made in III BC, in Alexandria. The Jewish Bible refers to another plant. Thus the first mention in Early Christian texts, the first depictions of the gourd vine and the iconographic type of a male figure reclining under the gourd vine all came from Alexandria. It seems justified to suggest pagan Alexandrian funerary art as a probable source for the Early Christian iconography of Jonah under the gourd vine.

Western Christian iconography of the Creation in the centuries XI-XIII offers many possibilities of following the logic of the development of several early Christian traditions as part of one pattern and in more detail. In the case of the connection of Roman-style artifacts (frescoes and miniatures from Rome and Latium) with the tradition of the Cotton Genesis, we can see that the process of "emancipating" a separate element and transferring it into an alien context gives it a new implication. This applies to the pictures of angels lying before the Creator, which are replacing or duplicating the personifications of Light and Darkness in the miniatures of Roman "Atlantic" bibles. Thanks to the recent discovery of the eighth-century Langobardian school frescoes in the "Crypt of the Fall" near Matera, we can assume that by that time the angel-day personifications in the Cotton composition could act as the personification of Light in the scene of the First Day of Creation. This gives us the opportunity to find an iconographic explanation of the appearance in the next century of the orant angels in the Creation of Adam in the Bible of Tours miniatures, and also prompts the iconographic connection of various poses and gestures of angels lying ahead of the Creator in the miniatures of the Creation in "Atlantic" Bibles with the angel-days of the Cotton tradition.

In the article the features of the development of the theme "Last Judgment" in the Spanish monumental sculpture are considered in comparison with French tradition. In France in the 12th and 13th c., the classical interpretation of the Last Judgment dominates. In Spain, the eschatological perspective of the Judgment appears only at the end of the 12th c., but in both centuries is both a theme of judgment over the soul and variants of composite iconography where the Last Judgment is combined with others themes in complex iconographic programs.

The portrayal of architecture in the Monreale mosaics differs substantially from architectural staffage in Byzantine monumental painting of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The author undertakes to research the portrayal of architecture in the Monreale mosaics. There are analogies with Roman mosaics and frescoes of the end of the eleventh to the twelfth centuries, which have their source in ancient Roman and early Christian art. Medieval artists and their patrons, Roman popes and bishops, have created an image of Jerusalem through portrayal of antique Roman buildings. Thus they model the Holy City on Rome. They were inspired by the ideas of early Latin theologians who asserted that Rome, the capital of the Civitas Dei on earth, had the leading role in affirming and spreading Christ's teaching. The Monreale mosaics carry the same message. This conclusion is described for the first time in scholarly work.

In view of the close relationship of donors to the imperial court and the high quality of the mosaics in the church of the Paregoritissa in Arta, the work is usually attributed to Constantinople workshops, although some stylistic and iconographic details are closer to monuments of the «Macedonian School». The compositional fusion of mosaics into architectural space echoes the monuments of the mid-Byzantine period. The attribution of the mosaics in the Church of the Holy Apostles, as well as the issue of the Macedonian and the Constantinople schools has a long history. Contemporary scholars take the view that the question has no simple answer, as the role of regional centers is underestimated. They assume the existence of an artistic center in Thessalonica, where tradition was not interrupted even during the Latin conquest. It can be supposed that some of its masters were educated in Constantinople and then continued their career in Thessalonica, adapting their styles to the preferences of local donors. Taking into consideration the eclectic character of both the architecture and the sculptural decoration, it can be argued that the masters of Arta were hired from the workshops of Thessalonica. From the modeling the face of the Pantokrator and the tiny tesseras used, we may consider that the workshops of Thessalonica might have been involved in the production of portable icons.

The article deals with the impact of Byzantine cloisonné enamels on the stylistic particularity of the micromosaic icons of the early Palaeologan period. The art of micromosaics, which was flourishing at the end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the fourteenth centuries, borrowed and reinterpreted some of artistic peculiarities typical of gradually decaying cloisonné enamel: an active use of "linear" highlights, covering garments with a fine sparkling "net", ornamented haloes and medallions or cartouches containing inscriptions. Thus the expressive qualities of painting, on the one hand, and of the decorative art of enameling on the other are conjoined in the micromosaic icons.