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Mermaids in Ancient Art

Mermaids in ancient art do not yet appear as one fixed image repeated across the ancient world. Instead, ancient visual culture offers a wider field of aquatic hybrids: Mesopotamian fish-men and fish-women, Syrian fish-bodied divinity, Greek bird-bodied sirens, fish-tailed tritons, nereids riding sea creatures, and Roman sea-processions. Together, these images form the deep visual ancestry of later mermaid art.