Dated from around 1250-1300 AD, the carving depicts the image of a mythological griffin, with its head turned and its wing flexed, serving as an example of monumental stone carving of the Palaiologian Renaissance. The panel, worked in low relief, resembles elaborate Roman silkwork in its arrangement of the beast within a roundel. Small Greek crosses decorate the midpoint of the border on all sides, signifying its religious symbolism, as griffins came to be associated as guardian figures, often of the dead, and symbols of power and authority (perhaps linked to popular myths and legends of the Alexandrian Romance). The marble panel possibly served as part of a tomb, likely signifying the noble lineage of the deceased.
The artifact is currently housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
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Dated from around 1250-1300 AD, the carving depicts the image of a mythological griffin, with its head turned and its wing flexed, serving as an example of monumental stone carving of the Palaiologian Renaissance. The panel, worked in low relief, resembles elaborate Roman silkwork in its arrangement of the beast within a roundel. Small Greek crosses decorate the midpoint of the border on all sides, signifying its religious symbolism, as griffins came to be associated as guardian figures, often of the dead, and symbols of power and authority (perhaps linked to popular myths and legends of the Alexandrian Romance). The marble panel possibly served as part of a tomb, likely signifying the noble lineage of the deceased.
The artifact is currently housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.