• r2-62-10
    Artemis priestess (?), Manisa 388. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
  • r2-62-20
    Torso of Priestess in temple of Artemis. Butler photo. (Howard Crosby Butler Archive, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University)
  • r2-62-30
    Torso of Priestess in Temple of Artemis. Butler photo. (Howard Crosby Butler Archive, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University)

Marble Torso of an Artemis Priestess (?)

Report 2: Sculpture from Sardis: The Finds through 1975 (1978) Cat. 62
Date
1st Half of 2nd C. AD, Roman
Museum
Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 388
Museum Inventory No.
388
Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
Manisa 388
Material
Marble, Stone
Object Type
Sculpture
Sculpture Type
Draped Woman
Site
Sardis
Sector
AT
Locus
AT Precinct
Findspot
Taken to Manisa museum in 1946. Originally found in AT, "just below the pteroma level, in the space between the antae" of the W cella in 1910 (Sardis I, 53).
Description
The figure wears an ungirt peplos with short sleeves; Hanfmann and Polatkan suggest (Three Sculptures, 65) that this may be a priestess of Artemis, although the dress is quite different from Moschine (Cat. 246, Figs. 426-427), the only known priestess from Sardis. The I. arm is brought forward, against the body, and the hand seems to have clasped a vertical fold of drapery. Despite the present-day impression from the photo, this is not a relief but a figure in the round (note preservation of trace of r. hand and discussion by Hanfmann and Polatkan) which would presumably have stood in the pronaos of the Artemis Temple. "Close inspection reveals that many folds are worked with mechanical, deeply gouged 'runs' typical of the first half of the 2nd century A.D." (Hanfmann-Polatkan, Three Sculptures, 64).
Dimensions
H. 1.56; max. W. ca. 0.57; max. Th. ca. 0.26.
Comments
See Also
Bibliography
Published: Sardis I, 53, fig. 47; Hanfmann-Polatkan, Three Sculptures, 63-65, pl. 12.
Author
NHR

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