This is one of my favorite heads, although it is not terribly well known. She hails from Aphrodisias, a Roman city some 200 km from Izmir and a (somewhat unlikely) treasure trove of sculpture – wonderfully baroque in flavour and spanning over 400 years of local innovation.
With glimmers of original polish and polychromy surviving on her even features and an extraordinary abundance of hair, who she was remains unclear other than she is too idealised to be a portrait of a mortal woman. She was excavated in the city’s main bath complex (the ‘Hadrianic baths’), which in addition to a place for a good soak and steam was a major locus for sculptural display (the result of conspicuous largess from local worthies).
She was one of several heads with similar coiffures found there, probably ruling out her identity as Aphrodite or a stand alone goddess. One suggestion is that she was a caryatid, a maiden bearing architectural features on her head and if nothing else her lofty topknot might support this…
Aphrodisias’ site museum is a delight – well worth a visit even if the published opening hours can be opaque.
