Architectural Plaque with a Lioness in the Getty Villa, July 2008

Architectural Plaque with a Lioness
Greek, made in Ionia (present-day western Turkey), 550-525 BC
Terracotta
Sima fragment

Inventory # 96.AD.100

This once brightly painted figure ornaments a fragment of a sima, an architectural element that served as a gutter at the edge of a roof. Simas often concealed and protected exposed wooden building elements. The formidable image of the lioness symbolically guarded the building it adorned.

Text from the Getty Villa museum label.