The propitiously preserved part of a tall, slender grave stele, this head at the Met is one of my favorites. The relief is very low, but somehow the sculptor has managed to really nail the sense of volume: the planes of the cheeks and brow, the ornate ear and that terrific hair.
I’m particularly interested in the rendering of the hair, and I think the sculptor was too. Buoyant locks have been cropped front and back (a critical moment when long hairs went out of fashion in Athens during the last years of the 6th century B.C.) to spring up into snail-shell curls. And that vigorous hair ripples in raised parallel ridges, smoothed somewhat by the filmy cap over it.
And what that cap might be is a source of some vexation. Perhaps a fashion statement for young athletes and warrior types of the period, or perhaps even more functional as a helmet liner. A very good example can be found on the monumental ‘Anavyssos’ kouros, where is hair hangs down the back and the effect is like a ‘durag’ (spelling is fraught) popularized by African Americans in the 1990’s. It’s certainly a boon for Archaic sculptors…
