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The one depicted in the Silos Beatus is particularly interesting because of its lavish, violet crystal mounted upon an eye-catching gold base. This type of conical cup is related to the cups in the Abbasid worlds. In one hand is a cup, the base of which ends in two appendages, held by the whore and one of the kings to whom it is being offered. It was adopted from that era by the Sassanian art of the 3rd-7th centuries AD and consequently, with the addition of a half-moon above, became an Islamic canon. There is no crown above her head, nor any representation of a city, an element which originated in the Hellenistic world and extended into the Classic era. The latter formula is a variation of the iconography of the Abbasid caliphs in majesty, which apparently inspired the miniature. Unlike the other codices, the Silos Beatus depicts the Great Whore standing rather than enthroned ( meretricis magnae sedens super aquas multas). Babylonia is the city of the devil, the opposite of the city of God, celestial Jerusalem, the Church, which is represented in the Revelation in human form in the image we discussed earlier of another woman depicted enshrouded in the sun with the moon under her feet and wearing a crown of stars above her head (ff. Sepúlveda points out, each miniature illustrates the respective storia, although many details stem from the interpretations given in the explanatio of the others since they are closely linked, even in the apocalyptic text. The Book is divided into three passages with the respective explanationes and illustrations: the great Whore and the kings of the earth, the woman riding the beast and the Lamb’s triumph over them, in which the woman does not usually appear except very occasionally as in the Osma Beatus.
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This episode is included in chapter 17 of the Revelation and constitutes Book 9 of the commentaries by Beatus. Babylon is personified as a whore in the tale of the woman and the beast.