Nile

Sixteen small children gather around this enormous reclining figure. They refer to the Nile's annual rise, expressed as sixteen cubits in the sculpture's imagery. The river takes human form, surrounded by signs of the life its water supports. Find the fruit spilling from the horn of plenty, the wheat and the sphinx. Together they identify the figure with Egypt and abundance. The base adds a river landscape and animals, so the subject continues below the reclining body. You can spend as much time following these smaller details as looking at the god himself. The sculpture was found in 1513 in Rome's Campus Martius, probably in connection with the sanctuary of Isis and Serapis, gods worshipped in Egypt and the Roman world. It now belongs to the New Wing's display of ancient sculpture. The children make a measure into a story you can count. Their number expresses an ancient image of a fruitful flood, rather than a report about the river's water level today.