Description - Comments:

The head is preserved with a large part of the neck. The face is strongly weathered, leaving only the inner corners of the eyes with their wide upper eyelids and the corners of the mouth discernible. The headdress is in a better state of preservation, especially the upper part and the sides (the front part on either side of the parting is almost completely worn away). It depicts a young woman with an oval face, almond-shaped eyes and a thin mouth. The hair framing the face is combed in wide waves (the texture of the individual strands of hair is rendered via the engraving of parallel lines with the point on the surface of the marble) directed towards the back of the head, where they are woven into a braid that wraps twice around almost the top of the skull creating an “open nest” bun. Three braids covering most of the upper surface of the skull have been meticulously engraved inside the bun. The texture of the locks of hair on the surface of the braids is rendered via incised overlocking triangles. The type of coiffure sporting a wide “open nest” bun is characteristic to the principate of Trajan (cf. the portrait of Antonia Cleodike from the Olympia Heraion [{Γ105}], as well as the portrait head {Γ95} from the baths of Argos), although the bun occupies the back of the skull. The same configuration (“open nest” bun combined with a wavy pattern around the face) is present on the portrait of unknown provenance, today in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens with inv. no. 4912 (A. Datsoulis-Stavridis, “Πορτραίτα του Εθνικού Αρχαιολογικού Μουσείου», ArchEph 1983, 202, pl. 67, Trajanic period), and the portrait bust of the Capitoline Museum of Rome inv. no. Sala delle colombe 64 (inv. no. 379; K. Fittschen, P. Zanker, Katalog der römischen Porträts in der Capitolinischen Museen und den anderen kommunalen Sammlungen der Stadt Rom III, Mainz am Rhein 1983, 61, cat. no. 82, pl. 103, late Trajanic – early Hadrianic period), although in both examples the bun is placed more vertically and further back on the head. The placement of the open bun higher on the top of the skull is reminiscent of the “turban” headdresses of the period of Hadrian (see K. Fittschen, “Nicht Sabina”, AA 2000, 507-511; K. Fittschen, “Über die Haartrachten von Kaiserinnen und Bürgerinnen in der mittelren Kaiserzeit”, ÉtTrav 25 [2012], esp. 110-111 with bibliography), dating the present head probably to the early years of his reign (cf. also the now lost portrait Fittschen 2012, 107, fig. 1 [see ibid. note 34 for more parallels]).

Bibliography:

J. Camp, “Αμερικανική Σχολή Κλασικών Σπουδών”, ArchDelt 71 (2016) Β1α, 28, fig. 4.