Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum

A 113
Female head from the Argive Heraion. Athens

Under life-size head of a woman with summarily rendered hair. Intended to be seen from her right. From the metopes of the Argive Heraion, ca. 400 BC.

Marble (Parian)
Metope
17 cm

From the Argive Heraion. Found in 1854.
Greece, Athens, National Museum, 1561
Ca. 400 BC

Preservation:
The head is broken through the base of the neck. There are two horizontal gouges or slashes at the back left of the head. They are stepped back from one another.

Description:
The head depicts a woman with sketchily rendered hair. She tilts her head gently to her left. The intended viewing angle was a three-quarter view of the right side. The face is asymmetrical. The left side of the face slopes more markedly backward. The forehead is smooth horizontal band. The eyebrows are fine, low-arching, ridges. Directly below each eyebrow, separated only by a fine deeply engraved line, is the projecting roll of the upper eyelid. The lower lids are similarly rendered by thick projecting rolls of marble. The surface of the eyeball is set back from the eyelids, and on the right side, the surface curves slightly. The nose is regular and has a broad flat ridge as well as a bridge without any indentation. The mouth, set immediately under the nose, is bow-shaped. The upper lip has a curving central dip. The lower lip is full and rolls outward over a horizontal depression below it. The horizontal depression indicates the beginning of the chin. The chin is long and U-shaped. It smoothly joins the lines of the cheeks and protrudes only slightly. The hair is parted over the inner corner of the left eye. It is summarily defined. It is a rough raised cap-like area on the head with a small indentation running from the right ear to above the left, as if for a band or merely marking the separation between the area of frontal hair that has been flipped back and the main body of the hair. Some strands are indicated sketchily around the right temple. Neither ear is completely finished.

Discussion:
This under life-size female head with roughly sketched hair was found at the Argive Heraion in 1854. The Heraion, a sanctuary of Hera approximately five kilometers from Mycenae and ten from Argos, featured a temple to Hera that was described by Pausanias in the second century AD and excavated in the modern era. This temple, with sculpted pediments and metopes, appears to date ca. 400 BC. For more on the sanctuary, temple, and temple decoration, see cat. no. A 109. On account of its style and its size, the head is thought to belong to the metopes of the temple. The shape of the face, the working of the eyes and eyelids, the short nose, and small lips are very much the same as those of other fragments, for instance the head of a warrior from the pediment (cat. no. A 109) and the head of an amazon from a metope (cat. no. A 112). According to Pausanias and the excavated record, it is likely that the metopes depicted an amazonian war against Troy and the battle of the giants and gods. Julia Lenaghan

Bibliography:
C. Waldstein, The Argive Heraion I (Boston 1902) 181-182, pl. 32.1-2 brief descriptive catalogue-like entry
F. Eichler, "Die Skulpturen des Heraions bei Argos" (OJh 19/20 1919) 80, no. 8, fig. 78 review discussion of Waldstein with note on correct viewing angle of head