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Drunken Faun

Museum Label:

Chiurazzi description:
Drunken Faun. Realistic sculpture of high merit. Third century BC. The drunken Faun is lying down upon a lion's skin. His right arm is raised in the joyful act of cracking the fingers at world's care. Origin: Museo di Napoli.

What is a faun:
In Roman mythology, fauns are place-spirits (genii) of untamed woodland. Romans connected their fauns with the Greek satyrs, wild and orgiastic drunken followers of Dionysus. However, fauns and satyrs were originally quite different creatures. Both have horns and both resemble goats below the waist, humans above; but originally satyrs had human feet, fauns goatlike hooves. The Romans also had a god named Faunus and a goddess Fauna, who, like the fauns, were goat-people.

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