Mural crown (1)

Summary
The mural crown worn by Assyrian queens becomes the symbol of Cybele and of Tyche as the patroness of a city.

Text
The mural crown is attested in Assyrian reliefs as a device worn by Assyrian queens (Fig. 1). The crown is later associated strongly with the Anatolian Cybele, a mother and earth goddess, and with the Greek Tyche, goddess of fortune (called by the Romans Fortuna), especially as the patroness of a city. Perhaps the most famous of these was the Tyche of Antioch, a well known statue of whom by Eutychides was represented in painting and on coins from the first century BCE (Fig. 2) until well into Byzantine (Christian) times (Fig. 5).

Although Cybele and Tyche with the mural crown are extremely common on coins of Asia Minor and the Hellenistic Levant, depictions of goddesses with the mural crown are also found on the islands of the eastern Mediterranean and the Greek mainland. Roman empresses are also depicted wearing the mural crown. Notable among these is Julia Domna, the wife of Septimius Severus, who was depicted on coins wearing the mural crown during her lifetime.

Sources (list of abbreviations)
WVDOG 24, 7
WVDOG 24, Tafel 10

Bibliography

Robert Whiting

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