Small Female Head

The bottom of this small female head is flat, with no evidence of breakage (1). The woman’s hair is pulled into topknot on top of head and rolls around side and back of head (2). Corrosion obscures most of the face, but the molded eyes have top and bottom lids, and the lips of the mouth are visible. The nose is simple, regular, and thin. The use of this head is uncertain; it has been suggested that it was a pendant, but no trace of a means of suspension have been found. Other small copper alloy heads have tangs extending below the neck for insertion into another object, such as a separately made body or bust (3). NOTES: 1. For another small head, perhaps representing Bacchus, of similar size and with a neck terminus that is very similar to this piece, see A. Kaufmann-Heinimann, Götter und Lararien aus Augusta Raurica: Herstellung, Fundzusammenhänge und sakrale Funktion figürlicher Bronzen in einer römischen Stadt, Forschungen in Augst 26 (Augst, 1998) 115, no. S18. 2. Compare 1970.21, head of a woman, perhaps the goddess Aphrodite. 3. See a small head in the collection of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv. no. Fr. 1552 c 1, in E. Richardson, Etruscan Votive Bronzes: Geometric, Orientalizing, Archaic (Mainz, 1983) 153, no. 17, fig. 347. Lisa M. Anderson