Going on the available information gleaned from this miniseries screencap from Gaius's pad, this looks like a statue of a Greek discus thrower. It is not a reproduction of the famous discus thrower sculpture that has the figure in motion. I guess it's kind of a pre-throw position. No word on whether a fig leaf is present 'round front.
Adama's quarters was a bit different in the miniseries. There seem to be some decor there that maybe doesn't appear later on. I suspect that these puppies are a couple of fencing masks:
Did they have horses on Caprica? Apparently. Found this statue (possibly bronze or bronze-like):
Never mind...I love you, set designer/set decorator/prop master. You've put together a very interesting collection of items. Even better, they all seem to have reasons for being there. It's not like you just grabbed whatever popped up at a local Vancouver rummage sale. Helmets off to you!
Big thanks to my brother for making a quick ID on this one. Take a look:
Yes, it looks like bristly dark blob. But it's actually a Japanese Samurai armor mask worn over the lower part of the face. That bristly hair thing is in the mustache area, there's a scary open mouth with teeth below it. Here's an example of a similar item done by CAS Iberia/Paul Chen:
Erawan (also known as Airavata) is the three-headed elephant that is ridden by the god Indra from Hindu mythology. The image I have of this wall hanging or tapestry in Adama's quarters is woefully undetailed, but it just might be Erawan, who is sometimes depicted wearing crowns:
A little more info. Indra is the god of weather and war. So that would make Airavata a sort of Battlestar of Mythology. Here is an image from Novica.com of a Thai painting the shows Erawan:
Got to love the parallels between space ships and sea ships. We all know Adama likes to work on his model ship. He also has a variety of nautical items around his quarters. One of my favorites is this sextant - a nautical navigation tool:
It is a brass reproduction of a C. Plath sextant that would have originally been made in Hamburg, Germany (though I don't know that that's where the repro is actually made). The actual size is rather large, nearly a foot in diameter. Plath has been known as the Cadillac of sextant makers and I think they are still in existence as a company in some form.
A sextant is particularly fitting because it is a astronomical instrument that measures latitude and longitude by measuring the altitudes of the sun, moon and stars. Sextant brass repros can run from $20 on up to several hundred while professional sextants can run into the thousands.
One of the smart design decisions the BSG team made was to not go all crazy space-age on us. From the retro military field phones to the stacks of books in Adama's quarters, there's a lot that we can recognize in the sets and plots. Civilians wear ties, guns shoot bullets, memos are handed out on paper. If you want to travel somewhere, you get into a ship and go there. It's a world that's both recognizable and foreign.
Admiral Adama's quarters is a goldmine of intriguing artifacts, presumably culled from the 12 colonies. They represent a wide range of cultures, religions and history. It's the inspiration for this scavenger hunt of a blog.
A somewhat mundane item, but the chair in front of Adama's desk appears to be a vintage Steelcase metal office chair. Probably done up in that particular military shade of green vinyl. This is a hardy example of American mid-century modern furniture design.
I'm still waffling on the head-on-a-stand. Could it be another Hindu deity entirely? But I'm pretty confident about this sitting Buddha statue:
Once again, the curse of the iTunes screencaps rears it's ugly head. Maybe I should give up on Season 3 for awhile and see if I can pull some better images out of the Season 2 DVD set. On an unrelated note, Adama sure seems to be fond of vases and urns.
It seems like Adama likes to redecorate on occasion. This helmet can be seen having been moved around in different episodes. Here's a picture of it next to the Roman helm, it's off to the left:
Moving on...that helmet appears to be a European Crusades-style knight's helm reproduction. I haven't made a positive ID on the maker, it's hard to find a clear shot of it. But we can go ahead and add a medieval Europe reference alongside the Chinese, Buddhist and Roman items.
Here's a modern repro handmade version from my collection for visual comparison's sake:
