Syro-Hittite siren cauldron attachment

“Most scholars would identify this figure as female since there are attachments with bearded human-headed winged demons that are certainly male, and attachments of both types are sometimes found on the same cauldron, as in one from the Midas Tumulus at Gordion (MM 3), discussed below. The non-bearded ones, like the one in Glencairn, are called sirens by association with winged creatures of Greek mythology. Sirens were dangerous bird-like females who tempted sailors with their hauntingly beautiful song. In Homer’s Odyssey (XII, 39) Odysseus and his sailors were warned about the lethal consequences of succumbing to the music of the sirens. Odysseus had to be lashed to the mast of his ship, and his sailors filled their ears with beeswax in order to avoid the sirens’ allure (Figure 4). After centuries of transmission by oral tradition, the Homeric epics were written down around the end of the 8th century or beginning of the 7th century B.C. To this same period we can date bronze cauldrons from various parts of the Mediterranean, with attachments representing fantastic, hybrid monsters such as sirens and griffins (body, tail and back legs of a lion combined with the head, wings and talons of an eagle). The meaning of these delightful, scary, or apotropaic devices on cauldrons—the sirens facing inward, peering across the cauldron, and the griffins facing outward—is open to interpretation.” (Irene Bald Romano and David Gilman Romano, “‘All that Glitters is Not Gold’: Glencairn’s Siren Cauldron Attachment,” _Glencairn Museum News_, Number 3, 2016; See External Link.)

Sources:
- Irene Bald Romano and David Gilman Romano, “’All that Glitters is Not Gold’: Glencairn’s Siren Cauldron Attachment,” _Glencairn Museum News_, Number 3, 2016.
- David Gilman Romano and Irene Bald Romano, _Catalogue of the Classical Collections of the Glencairn Museum_, 1999, 46-48.