Harpocrates is the Roman incarnation of Horus, the son of the Egyptian deities Isis and Serapis, and he appears in small numbers in Britain. He is most often depicted standing with his hand raised to his mouth, as in several examples from London (147, 148 and 1101). This gesture represented the hieroglyph for the name Harpocrates in Egypt, but was misinterpreted and led to his becoming a god of silence and secrecy in Rome (Crummy 2011, 159). While usually naked, Harpocrates 726 from St Albans shows him wearing a long robe, while a small figure from Chester (210) wears a turban. Two examples are winged, both of which also show Harpocrates with companions – the London figure 147 stands with a tortoise, dog and bird, while the Colchester figure 1043 holds a bird. The wings indicate that these figures are also associated with Cupid, and at Delphi Harpocrates was linked to both Cupid and Apollo (Crummy 2009, 4).
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