Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum

B 071
Mask of a Bearded Male (Acheloos?) from Marathon. Berlin

Marble
Mask
H 32 cm, W 21 cm, D 12 cm

From Marathon (Greece).
Germany, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikesammlung, 100
Early Classical

Preservation:
The mask is broken through the top around the border between the brow and the hair. Below the chin through the beard the mask has a flat smoothly finished surface. The back is entirely flat. The eyebrows, the eye lids, the tip of the nose, the mouth, and the prominent areas of the beard are abraded. There are traces of red in the deeper furrows of the right side of the beard. The piece has several dowel holes. Visible at the back of the upper break surface is a square dowel hole. At both temples are rectangular dowel holes. The right is still full with a lead plug. Above the right rectangular dowel hole is a smaller dowel or pin which is still in place. The corresponding position on the left side of the brow is no longer preserved. On the front of the smoothly finished bottom surface there is a dowel hole which extends upwards toward the mouth through the beard. On the side of the head around and to the right of the brow’s right rectangular dowel the surface is unfinished and tool marks are visible. On the brow itself there is a triangular area of completely smooth surface that extends directly above the eyebrows and reaches a point in the center of the forehead. The line dividing the cheek from the beard on the right side of the face has been lowered; this appears to be a deliberate correction.

Description:
The mask depicts a bearded male with a large forehead at the corners of which two objects were attached. A larger object was attached above the outer corner of the eye and below the hairline and a smaller one just above that. The upper part and the lateral edges of the forehead are not smoothly finished. The arching eyebrows stand out from the large forehead. Below them the eyes are framed by thick projecting eyelids that do not overlap their intersection at the outer corners. The inner line of the lower eyelid is virtually horizontal and the upper lid has a high arch which reaches its highest point closer to the inner corner than the outer corner of the eye. The nose is long with a flat ridge. Only the lower lip of the mouth is entirely visible; the upper lip is partially covered by the moustache. The bottom line of the lower lip has a “V” shape; it is more rectilinear than organic in shape. The groove that divides the lips has a triangular dip at the center. This gives the upper lip a central overhang. The beard conceals the chin and most of the lower face. The transition between the beard and the face is precisely defined. The upper border of the beard, which runs from the temples to the upper lip, forms a smooth edge around the face; on the right side it has been lowered from its initial position. The beard is rendered as a harmonious single entity by parallel undulating engraved lines. The moustache, which sits on the upper lip and hangs down in the shape of an upside down “U”, is a separate entity that lies on top of the beard. It is slightly raised and the parallel undulating engraved lines that denote its hair are more closely packed together. A few centimeters below the mouth in the middle of the beard is a dowel hole which extends down to the break surface.

Discussion:
The head shows stylistic similarities to works of the early fifth century BC. The rendering of the beard, the eyes, and mouth are characteristic of the so called “severe” style. The most obvious comparison is to bearded head of the tyrannicide, Aristogeiton. Isler even cites the head as coming from the workshop of Kritios and Nesiotes. Robertson, in addition, compares the mask to the Euthydikos Kore and the Blonde boy, to which the mask is likely contemporary. Already in 1891 it was remarked the severe style of the piece was indirectly noted; it was remarked that, though the mask seemed archaistic, it resembled no other archaizing sculpture. Ironically because it did not seem archaizing, it was thought perhaps not to be ancient. Yet in 1848 when it was acquired at Marathon, the idea of a fake antiquity is certainly inconceivable. In the early 20th century Wrede decided it was original and, having seen a mask of Dionysos that hung on the wall and had a separately worked beard, concluded that this was also a mask Dionysos with a separate beard. C. Blumel has given the mask the most serious scholarly attention. Blumel in his initial publication suggested that the two dowels at the corners of the forehead were for the addition of ears and horns. He also pointed out that the unfinished expanses of the forehead were covered with a bronze or marble piece depicting hair. Later he noted that the bottom dowel hole could not have been for the addition of a separately worked piece of beard since the bottom surface was completely smooth without the usual rough areas that enabled the two pieces to be stuck together. Blumel concluded that the mask depicted Acheloos, the paternal god of all rivers and nymphs, who featured a man’s head with bull ears and horns. Corroborating this identification is that Acheloos, as Isler has shown, is also most frequently represented in mask form. A most comparable mask of Acheloos appears on a table in a relief from Megara and now in Berlin. On the basis of the Megaran relief Blumel went on to suggest that the Berlin mask itself was intended to be placed directly on a table and that this explained the finished bottom area and the dowel in the center of the beard. There are two arguments against Blumel’s proposal. The first concerns the subject of the mask and the second concerns the original position of the mask. Effenberger denies that the mask represents Acheloos and suggests, as Wrede had already done, that it depicted Dionysos. She did not believe that there was any evidence for a cult of Acheloos in the early fifth century in Attica and thought the dowels in the forehead were too high for ears and horns. Blumel responded by pointing that Acheloos appear in 6th century Attic vase painting and, thus, probably had a cult and that there is an inscription datable around 420 BC at Marathon which commemorates Acheloos. As for the position of the dowel holes, the argument is purely subjective. M. Robertson, who fully considers the Acheloos identification, suggests Pan as a second possibility. He does so mainly because at Marathon there was a cave sacred to Pan and that Pan, who had aided in the battle, begins in the early fifth century to appear on vases. Isler, who accepts the identification of the mask as Acheloos especially because the mask was the preferred form for depictions of Acheloos, questions Blumel’s interpretation on another point. He does not believe that the mask could have been set on a table. He prefers to believe that the dowel hole below the mouth was for an additional piece of beard and that the dowel hole on top was to hang the mask. His reasons are that the mask would have leaned too far forward and that the beard would have been proportionately too small. The former of these argument’s is certainly compelling since the flat back surface seems structurally odd as it leans forward, Blumel’s responded to this attack on his theory by pointing out that the bottom surface of the beard is too smooth to have been intended to mesh or attach with another piece. He also finds it hard to believe that a sculptor would have needed to add such a small piece as the remainder of the beard. Finally his illustrations show the piece as it would have leaned forward. The forward lean accentuates the eyes and eyebrows. In further support of Blumel’s argument, one should note that for an additional piece of beard there would have been no need to put the dowel hole in the front of the face nor to have made the dowel hole that large. Yet if the dowel were designed to support an object that were leaning forward over an edge, it would obviously have had to have been at the front of the object and to have been fairly large. Even if the depiction on the Megaran relief does not convince our modern sensibilities that this would have been an appropriate position, we might imagine that the mask was attached to a raised ledge or mantle in the same way it would have been attached to a table.

Bibliography:
C. Blümel, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Katalog der Sammlung antiker Skulpturen: Katalog der griechischen Skulpturen des fünften und vierten Jahrhunderts v. Chr (Berlin 1928) pp.2-4 K2 pl.2 identifies the subject as Acheloos on the basis of a relief from Megara
C. Blümel, Die archaisch griechischen Skulpturen der staatlichen Museen zu Berlin (Berlin 1963) pp.20-21 no.12 figs.29-33 repeats 1928 catalogue entry
H. P. Isler, Acheloos (Bern 1970) pp.36-37, 106, 114, 131 no.51 points out that the mask as the earliest evidence for the Acheloos cult, notes that that cannot have been placed on a table
A. Effenberger, "Zur Interpretation des Megarischen Archeloos-reliefs" (FuB 12 1970) p.78 especially footnote 7 does not consider the Berlin mask to depict Acheloos
C. Blümel, "Die Acheloosmaske aus Marathone und das Weihrelief mit Acheloos und Gotterversammlung aus Megara" (AA 1971) pp.188-194 defends his position that the mask was placed on a table
M. Robertson, A History of Greek Art (Cambridge 1975) p.177 especially footnote 33 discusses the subject, Acheloos or Pan, and dates it after 479 BC
(H. P. Isler), "Acheloos" Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae I (Zurich 1981) p.18 no.80 notes that the dowel holes indicate that there were bull ears and horns in bronze and that the mask dates ca.470 BC