The head shows a man with long, wavy locks which end in spiral curls; individual strands are indicated by incisions. The hair is badly weathered, but near the top of the beard two rows of these curls can be discerned. The cheeks are extremely smooth, except where small triangular strokes indicate the beard. The eye is portrayed by two pendent arcs, a heavy one for the pupil, a thinner one for the iris. The upper lid is heavy. The preserved end of the outer r. eyebrow is decorated with light incisions.

Hanfmann believes that there is evidence of two stages of reuse for the piece, a recutting in the 5th or 6th C. of an early Imperial original, and a reuse in waterworks any time between the destruction of 616 and the 13th C. He bases his argument for the former on the locks and on the stippling of the beard, which looks as if it does not belong to the face. I would add that the modeling around the eyes is remarkably soft for a late antique portrait. He also notes that the latest coin in the immediate vicinity was of Constans II (Sardis M1, no.1050, struck 647-648), a possible indication that the head was being used or moved during the road-building and installation of waterworks which took place at that time nearby.

S. Sande has argued, however, that this is an original head of the early 6th C., later reworked into a waterspout.