Museum/Current place of storage: |
Olympia, Archaeological Museum. |
Inv. no: |
- |
Dimensions: |
|
Material: |
- |
Findspot: |
Olympia (exact findspot unknown). |
Original Display Location: |
Unknown. |
Date: |
Late Flavian – early Trajanic period (?). |
Statuary Type (body) : |
- |
Mode of Self-Representation (head): |
Τhe coiffure depends on contemporary imperial fashion protypes (“ModeFrisur”), while the face is idealized. |
Civic Presence (Social Role Represented): |
Unknown. |
Inscribed Base: |
No |
Author: |
Panagiotis Konstantinidis |
Added: |
2024-09-29 |
Edited: |
Description - Comments:
To my knowledge, the head is only known from two photographs in the archive of the German Archaeological Institute of Athens. Only the left half of the head, broken vertically, is preserved. The chin and the upper part of the headdress (at the height of the forehead), are broken. The left eye, small, almond-shaped, with wide lids, and the left full cheek are preserved. The coiffure around the face creates a protruding to the sides lunate shape consisting of dense round locks (“Löckchen-Toupet”). On the upper part of the lunate toupet, the locks are spiral-shaped, worked with the point and the drill (cf. e.g. the locks in {Γ57} and {Γ107}), while in the lower part of the toupet they have a different direction, indicated by their narrower flatter shape (worked with the point). The locks on the sides of the toupet are more coarsely worked. The hair on the surface of the skull on the sides is rendered with horizontally incised lines, ending in a broad bun that occupies the entire back of the head (summarily worked, indicating that the back of the head was not meant to be seen). This tripartite arrangement of the headdress (lunate toupet – flat locks on the back half of the skull – wide bun occupying the entire back end of the latter) is present in the Flavian (cf. {Γ57}) and Trajanic period (cf. {Γ105} and {Γ110}, as well as the portrait head of the Capitoline Museums in Rome, Κ. Fittschen, P. Zanker, Katalog der Capitolinischen Museen III, Mainz am Rhein 1983, 50-51, cat. no. 64, pls. 81-82; for the tripartite arrangement of coiffures of the Flavian and Trajanic periods see also K. Fittschen, «Über die Haartrachten von Kaiserinnen und Bürgerinnen in der mittleren Kaiserzeit», ÉtTrav 25 [2012], 104 notes 1-2 with bibliography). The head should probably be dated to the late Flavian – early Trajanic period, although the stylistic rendering of the back part of the head which finds its best parallel in the head of the portrait statue {914} of the Olympia Nymphaeum does not exclude a dating to the Antonine period; in this case the woman sported an earlier period headdress (it is unknown if the present head is in any way associated with the sculptural decoration of Herodes Atticus’ Nymphaeum).