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Ivory Head. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul)
Ivory Head
The Lydians and their World
(2010)
Cat. 52
- Date
- 6th c BC, Lydian
- Museum
- Istanbul, Archaeological Museum, 4657
- Museum Inventory No.
- 4657
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- IAM 4657
- Material
- Ivory
- Object Type
- Bone and Ivory, Sculpture
- Sculpture Type
- Human Figure
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- Nec
- Trench
- Butler Tomb S1
- Locus
- Butler Tomb S1
- Description
- “Above the forehead and back of the head are flat surfaces…On each cheek is a horizontal crescent-shaped depression, and below the lower lip is still another depression.…The ears are large and fully modeled. Attached to each is a large circular ear-ring 1 cm in diameter carved in the ivory…Through the neck and back of the head is a vertical perforation 7.5 mm in diameter” (Curtis 1925, 35). Height 0.041 m.
- Comments
- Recovered in 1913 by the Butler Expedition, from the South Necropolis of Sardis, Tomb S1, described and illustrated in plan in Butler 1922, 140-141, 162, 164 and Ill. 182 on p. 163. Five items from the tomb besides the ivory head are recorded in notes by G. H. Chase: two items of bronze, an Attic (?) red-figure pyxis (with sole of foot or fish on the cover); stone “hone” (i.e., whetstone ?).
- See Also
- Dusinberre, “Ivories”; Greenewalt, “Introduction”; Greenewalt, “Cosmetics”; Baughan, “Lydian Burial Customs”.
- Bibliography
- Butler 1922, 140-141, ill. 156 on p. 141; Curtis 1925, 35, no. 87; Barnett 1948, 18 and 23, fig. 20; Akurgal 1961, 156, 159, pl. VII a-b; Meriçboyu 2001, 50, fig. 3.
- Author
- CHG