I came across this beautiful encyclopedia by Bernard de Montfaucon at the BM.
It was lent to the British Museum by the House of Commons Library.
It’s quite famous scholarly work: L’Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures.
Written in French, and surprisingly, it can still be read - even by me with my so-so French.
What is remarkable is that Montfaucon, a Benedictine monk, meticulously gathered thousands of images of classical antiquities from private collections all across Europe, and categorised them systematically. Many of these artifacts he documented have since been lost or destroyed, so we owe him a debt of gratitude.
Montfaucon’s engravings on the right refer to statutes he found on the mystery cult of Sabazios of the Roman Empire.
The bronze hands were probably left standing upright on an altar in a temple as a permanent votive asking the god Sabazios for protection or thanking him for a blessing.
They appear to be rich in symbolism.
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