front Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
front Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
This object does not yet have a description.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1940.130
Title
Head of a Goddess
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture, head
Date
50 BCE-100 CE
Period
Hellenistic period, Late, to Early Roman Imperial
Culture
Greek
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/291335

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Marble from western Asia Minor
Dimensions
6 x 10 cm (2 3/8 x 3 15/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Excavated from Antioch, House of Aion, Sector 15-M (no. C602-S677) (Turkey, Hatay) by the Syrian Department of Antiquities (later the Hatay government) and the Committee for the Excavation of Antioch and Its Vicinity, (1935-1939), dispersed; to Fogg Art Museum, 1940.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of the Committee for the Excavation of Antioch and its Vicinity
Accession Year
1940
Object Number
1940.130
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
75

Head of a Goddess

The fragment is broken off on a slight diagonal across the middle of the neck. There appear to be the remains of two hands, much damaged, on either side of her head. The marble is from western Asia Minor.

The breaks suggest the head came from a rough statuette or relief, perhaps not fully finished, of Aphrodite holding her tresses. Face and eyes are carved and outlined in a sketchy fashion. The hair and the large crown (or extra mass of hair) are carved with equally sketchy parallel lines, designed to suggest strands of hair or the enrichment of the large diadem.

The head has a Syrian cast, placing the figure among late Hellenistic or Greek Imperial images of Aphrodite and Astarte.

Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer

Publication History

  • Richard Stillwell, ed., Antioch-on-the-Orontes III, The Excavations, 1937-1939, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ, 1941), p. 117 no. 250, pl. 8 no. 250
  • Cornelius C. Vermeule III and Amy Brauer, Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 91, no. 75

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu