This past Spring I was in England and took a trip down to Brighton to visit an old friend. We spent all day Saturday just strolling through the narrow streets and various shops. There was a great flee market where I spotted a table full of silver, and was shocked to see quite a display of Nielloware. I picked up a great little ring with an unusual design. You can read more about Nielloware, the etched silver process, in my blog from last week. Many of these pieces depict figures from mythology, and my ring had a hippocampus on it. I didn't realize it at the time. I just liked the ring. But once home, my 9-year-old said "mom you have a hippocampus on your ring" ... "a what?" She ran off to her room and came back with her large volume of mythology and pointed to a picture. Sure enough; it was definitely a hippocampus. But what IS a hippocampus?
The hippocamp, or hippocampus is from Greek for 'horse monster,' often called sea-horse. It is a mythological creature depicted as a horse in the forepart with a coiling, scaly, fish-like hindquarter. Homer called this character Poseidon Hippios, God of horses. Roman imagery uses a sea-chariot drawn by hippocampi. The statue here is of Triton with a hippocamp at the foot of the Trevi fountain in Rome. Huh, well I guess I learned something new from my daughter.
