The Mystery of the Marble Head

The blog post for this week is an entry by Jack Brooker, an Egypt Centre volunteer and MA student of Public History and Heritage at Swansea University.

From February to June this year, I was enrolled in the Egypt Centre’s module Reaching the Public: Museums and Object Handling as part of my MA in Public History and Heritage at Swansea University. One assessment required me to undertake research on four objects from the Egypt Centre’s collection and present them in a public handling session. The objects ranged from a large wooden stela from Edfu Temple to a small (but beautiful!) silver coin of Ptolemy I. Perhaps the most interesting object I researched was a bearded marble head (figs. 1, 4–5). W914 is approximately ¾ life-size and is made from what appears to be Parian marble, a high-quality white marble, quarried on the Aegean island of Paros. The object is likely the head of a now lost statue (although it may also have been constructed as a stand-alone bust) and may have been displayed as a votive or religious object in a temple, or as art in a private residence.

Fig. 1: Our mysterious marble head (W914)

The head, and especially the woolly beard, is similar in style to the works of Lysippos of Sikyon. The famed sculptor lived in the transition between the Classical and Hellenistic periods and is the creator of the original bronze statue from which the Farnese Herakles was copied (fig. 2). The Egypt Centre’s artefact may well be another Roman copy of one of Lyssipos’ works. However, the most important question concerns who the object depicts. Initially, the answer seemed simple: prior research on the object suggested that it was a bust of the Graeco-Egyptian god Serapis. Serapis (sometimes spelt Sarapis) was a god created by Ptolemy I, who combined the Egyptian gods Osiris and Apis with a number of classical Greek deities, including Zeus, Pluto and Dionysos, in order to act as a royal patron (Dowling, 2012; Smith, 1991: 65).

Fig. 2: Roman marble copy of Lysippos’ Herakles (MMA 27.122.18)

But as my research progressed it became apparent that the object did not have any of the major iconographical features generally associated with Serapis. Firstly, the hair and beard of our artefact were not as long as is typically depicted on statues of Serapis, who tends to adopt Zeus’ expansive mane (Smith, 1991: 64–66). More significantly, the bust has neither the kalathos (corn-basket) nor bull’s horns, both of which are important features of most depictions of Serapis (fig. 3).

Fig. 3: Basanite bust of Zeus-Serapis with modius/kalathos (BM 1805,0703.52)

Having (more or less) ruled out the possibility that W914 was a depiction of Serapis, I began to look for the object’s real identity. The lack of information on the object’s provenance was a major hinderance. We do not know if it came from Egypt, or elsewhere in the Roman world. We also cannot say what kind of site it was found on. If it was found in a temple, for example, that could indicate that the head depicted a god. Unfortunately, I was forced to attempt an identification based solely on the head’s appearance.

Fig. 4: W914

After some brief research into whether the object depicted a philosopher, I noticed it had a passing resemblance to a statue of Asklepios, which I had seen in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. Asklepios was the Graeco-Roman god of medicine and healing and was popular throughout the Roman world (Mylonopoulos, 2012). As in the case of Serapis, the standard depiction of Asklepios in Hellenistic statuary is based on that of Zeus, though Asklepios often has slightly shorter hair. The style of diadem on W914 is also a common feature on statues of Asklepios (fig. 5). Furthermore, depictions of Asklepios show a high amount of pathos, a facial expression designed to indicate concern for someone’s wellbeing (Smith, 1991: 64).

Fig. 5: W914 with a view of the diadem

Towards the end of my research, Dr. Ken Griffin was able to match the head to its proper object file (it had previously been mislabelled as GR. See Gill & Gee 1996, nr. 1). There was little information in the file, but there was a Wellcome flimsy slip (125162) with the name ‘Aesculapius’ (the Latin rendering of Asklepios) scrawled in black pen, probably by the Egypt Centre’s first honorary curator Kate Bosse-Griffiths (1910–1998). Clearly my theory wasn’t as original as I had believed! The slip also provided the auction details (lot 76, which was sold by Sotheby’s on the 12 December 1932 for £10), which describe it as “a bearded head, about 12 in. high, in marble, Roman 1st century AD”. Further writing on the slip (again by Kate Bosse-Griffiths), show that the head was also identified as that of Homer, but the features are not consistent with typical depictions of the great poet (fig. 6). However, the slip does prove that the head is part of the Wellcome Collection. 

Fig. 6: Marble bust of Homer (BM 1805,0703.85)

Sir Henry Wellcome collected antiquities from all corners of the ancient world, not just Egypt. There are a number of objects from the Greek mainland in the Egypt Centre’s Wellcome Collection, including a fine pottery figure of a woman from Boeotia (GR8). Wellcome also acquired another marble head of Asklepios from the shrine on Melos, now in the British Museum (fig. 7). W914 does not quite fit the Melian style, but it does share similarities with another marble head of Asklepios from Kos, also in the British Museum (fig. 8).

Fig. 7: Head of Asklepios of Melos (1867,0508.115)

Fig. 8: Marble head of Asklepios from Kos (BM 1868,0620.3)

So, is the mystery solved? Unfortunately, without more evidence we cannot say for certain. However, the weight of the evidence does seem to suggest that the Egypt Centre’s mysterious marble head is a depiction of Asklepios, and not Serapis.

Bibliography:

Dowling, M. B. (2012) ‘Serapis’. In The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, ed. R. S. Bagnall, K. Brodersen, C. B. Champion, A. Erskine and S. R. Huebner. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 6039–6041.

Gill, D. W. J. and R. Gee (1996) ‘Museum Supplement: Classical Antiquities in Swansea’. The Journal of Hellenic Studies 116: 157–161.

Mylonopoulos, I. (2012) ‘Asklepios’. In The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, ed. R. S. Bagnall, K. Brodersen, C. B. Champion, A. Erskine and S. R. Huebner. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 832–834.

Smith, R. R. R. (1991) Hellenistic Sculpture: A Handbook. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson.

Sotheby, W. H. (1932) Catalogue of Prehistoric Implements, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Luristan and Indian Antiquities, etc., also Collections of Native Art, Including the Property of T.H. Powell ... Monsieur Noé de Padilla ... Admiral Sir Frederick Bedford ... and other Properties, which will be Sold by Auction by Messrs. Sotheby & Co. ... at their Large Galleries ... on Monday, the 12th of December, 1932. London: Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge.