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"data": {
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"accession_number": "1969.118",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Apis Bull, 400\u2013100 BCE. Egypt, Greco-Roman period (332 BCE\u2013395 CE), Ptolemaic dynasty (305\u201330 BCE). Serpentinite; overall: 53 x 19 x 59 cm (20 7/8 x 7 1/2 x 23 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, 1969.118",
"current_location": "107 Egyptian",
"title": "Apis Bull",
"creation_date": "400\u2013100 BCE",
"creation_date_earliest": -400,
"creation_date_latest": -100,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"Egypt, Greco-Roman period (332 BCE\u2013395 CE), Ptolemaic dynasty (305\u201330 BCE)"
],
"technique": "serpentinite",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art",
"collection": "Egypt - Ptolemaic Dynasty",
"type": "Sculpture",
"measurements": "Overall: 53 x 19 x 59 cm (20 7/8 x 7 1/2 x 23 1/4 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 0.53,
"height_inch": 20,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.875,
"width": 0.19,
"width_inch": 7,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5,
"depth": 0.59,
"depth_inch": 23,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.25,
"length": 0.59,
"length_inch": 23,
"length_inch_fraction": 0.25
}
},
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"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 301313,
"title": "Year in Review: 1969",
"description": "Year in Review: 1969. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 27-February 22, 1970).",
"opening_date": "1970-01-27T05:00:00"
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{
"id": 302145,
"title": "Traditions and Revisions: Themes from the History of Sculpture",
"description": "Traditions and Revisions: Themes from the History of Sculpture. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 24-November 16, 1975).",
"opening_date": "1975-09-24T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 218228,
"title": "La gloire d'Alexandrie",
"description": "La gloire d'Alexandrie. Petit Palais, Mus\u00e9e des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (organizer) (May 5-July 26, 1998).",
"opening_date": "1998-05-05T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 677276,
"title": "Divine Egypt",
"description": "Divine Egypt. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (October 6, 2025-January 19, 2026) https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/divine-egypt.",
"opening_date": "2025-10-06T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "CMA, 27 January-22 February 1970, The Year in Review for 1969, cat.: CMA Bulletin 57, no. 1 (January 1970), no. 2, back cover; CMA 1975, no. 77; Brooklyn/Detroit/Munich 1989, no. 105; CMA 1996 (not in catalogue); Paris 1998, p. 199, no. 144 (entry by Alain Charron)",
"opening_date": "1970-01-27T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Paris, France; Mus\u00e9e du Petit Palais. \"La Gloire d'Alexandrie\" 5/5/98 - 7/26/98.",
"opening_date": "1998-05-05T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Purchased from Marguerite Mallon, La Jaille, France",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
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}
],
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"did_you_know": "A larger base, likely inscribed, may have hidden the rough, unfinished lower edges of this statue.",
"early_education_description": null,
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"description": "Sacred animal cults have a long history in ancient Egypt, but they became even more important in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Because each god could incarnate himself into any animal species, beasts of all sorts--dogs, cats, ibises, crocodiles--were protected, venerated, mummified, and collected by the thousands in specialized animal cemeteries. The sacred bull cults were different. Apis, the bull of Memphis, was a god in his own right. But he was also associated with other deities, such as Ptah, the god of Memphis, and Osiris, in the form of Osiris-Apis (or Serapis). Statues and reliefs always show him crowned with a sun disk and cobra. When an Apis bull died, he was given a burial fit for a king in an area of the Memphite cemetery known as the Serapeum.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60762440"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1969.118-apis-bull"
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"citations": [
{
"citation": "Lee, Sherman E. \u201cThe Year in Review for 1969.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 57, no. 1 (January 1970): 2\u201350.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: Back cover; Mentioned: p. 44, no. 2",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152307"
},
{
"citation": "Lanes, Jerrold ed. \"Recent Accessions of American and Canadian Museums,\" The Art Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 4 (Winter 1970): 325.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cooney, John D. \u201cA Medley of Bulls.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 58, no. 1 (January 1971): 10\u201319.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 17-18, fig. 12",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152357"
},
{
"citation": "Fazzini, Richard A. et al. Cleopatra\u2019s Egypt: Age of the Ptolemies. New York: Brooklyn Museum, 1988. p. 211\u2013212, cat. 105.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 11",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1991/page/n26"
},
{
"citation": "Berman, Lawrence M., and Kenneth J. Boha\u010d. Catalogue of Egyptian Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999",
"page_number": "Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 466-7",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Ghisellini, Elena. \"Sull'so di Pietre Colorate Nell'egitto Tolemaico fra Tradizione e Innovazione.\" Bollettino d'Arte VII, no. 37-38 (January-June 2018): 5-26.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: P. 16-17",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Semat, Aude. \"Hathor.\" In Divine Egypt, edited by Diana Craig Patch and Brendan Hainline, 40-51. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2025.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 50-51, no. 18",
"url": ""
}
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"date_text": "400\u2013100 BCE",
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