Commentary Prepared by Dr. Julia Lenaghan, Ashmolean Museum

B 098
Head of Apollo from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. London.

Marble
Head
H. 42 cm

Found on the site of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum, Turkey), during the excavations of C.J. Newton in 1857. The head was found in the main deposit, in the area north of the north wall of the terrace of the Mausoleum, called the Imam’s field.
United Kingdom, London, British Museum, 1058
c. 350 BC

Preservation:
The head has been reconstructed from four main fragments: the lower part of the face; the upper part of the head; the front of the neck and the back of the head. Plaster fills the gaps between the fragments on the front and left side of the head. The join between the fragments is noticeable on the face, in the middle of the nose, where there is a break. A large wedge remains missing on the right side of the head. In the cast, this fracture is filled with plaster, which is left at a recessed level. Both ears are mostly broken away, and on the left side the restoration blends the two fragments together in a way which makes it difficult to understand the original placement of the left ear. The back of the hair is weathered. There is noticeable surface damage on the face: the right eyebrow and eye are damaged, the nose is broken at the top and bottom, with a larger chunk broken from the centre, the lips are damaged, especially on the right side and the chin is damaged. The base on which the head is mounted is modern.

Description:
The cast reproduces a head from a statue of a male figure, from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The head is sharply twisted to the left, and the position of the neck suggests that this twist of the head was countered by a twisting of the body to the right. The hair is rendered as a mass of wavy ridges, the thick locks parted in the centre and swept back on top of the head. The remains at the front of the head suggest the hair may have been shown arranged into a ‘bow’, like that of the Apollo Belvedere (C 122A – B). At the back, there are traces of a chigon. The pattern of the hair is difficult to follow on the back, however. The waves are rendered horizontally across the back of the head, whereas one might expect the hair to be pulled up into the chignon. The face is oval, with a heavy, prominent jaw, which is contrasted with a delicate bow-shaped mouth. The eyes are deeply set, and the bridge of the nose is particularly prominent, swelling in the centre. The neck is broken along a diagonal line and attached to a modern base.

Discussion:
The head, found on the site of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus depicts the god Apollo, recognisable by his characteristically wavy hairstyle. It has already been noted in the description that the remains of the hair at the front suggest a ‘bow’ of hair like that of the Apollo Belvedere. Similar hairstyles are preserved in several other later Roman images of Apollo, the iconographies of which are based on fourth century models. This head cannot be matched with any specific type of Apollo statue preserved in the Roman statuary, but scholars have noted that the torsion of the head and neck suggests the god was depicted shooting a bow or in some other lively pose typical of fourth century sculpture. In size, this head falls between the two largest groups of freestanding sculpture from the Mausoleum, dubbed by Newton the ‘colossal’ group (2.70 – 3 m in height) and the ‘heroic’ group (c. 2.40 m in height). Waywell places the Apollo with the ‘heroic’ size figures, since as a god he should be depicted on the same scale or larger than other figures, but not smaller. The ‘heroic’ group includes only standing figures, both male and female, and the consensus is that they represent ancestors or family members of Mausolus (see B 229). Apollo, grouped with these figures, could then have represented an ancestor of Mausolus, illustrating the ‘heroic genealogy’ of the Hekatomnid dynasty. This interpretation is supported by the fact that representations of a sun god, who may by this time have been associated with Apollo, appear on Hekatomnid coinage. The appearance of a tragedy concerning a mythical Mausolus who was the son of a sun god (Ps.-Plutarch, de Fluviis, 25.1) also suggests Mausolus may have been interested in emphasising a special family connection between his family and this ‘Apolline’ sun god. On the other hand, images of a sun god already appeared on the coins of Halicarnassus before the Hekatomnid succession, indicating a special link between the city and the god, which Mausolus could have drawn on in order to underscore the bond between dynasty and city. According to his interpretation, Waywell places the Apollo with the ‘heroic’ standing statues on a shelf running around the middle of the tall podium of the Mausoleum. (On the form of the monument, see B 97 and B 229). Jeppesen, who opposes Waywell’s hypothetical middle shelf anyway, suggests the Apollo may have been an acroterion on one of the corners of the roof, for which he has found architectural evidence. This position undermines the notion that Apollo figured as an ancestor of the Hekatomnids specifically, but need not totally diminish Apollo’s importance in sculptural programme of the Mausoleum. For more on the Mausoleum in general, see B 97 (‘Mausolus’). Specifically on the placement of the ‘heroic’ size figures, see B 229 (‘heroic’ portrait of a man). For other sculpture from the Mausoleum, see B 116 (‘colossal’ portrait of a woman) and A 138 – 140 (fragments of friezes). CMD

Bibliography:
A.H. Smith, A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, vol. 2 (London 1900) 127 – 28, no. 1058, pl. 20, fig. 2 (identifies as Apollo)
C. Havelock, "Round Sculptures from the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos," Studies Presented to George M.A. Hanfmann (Mainz am Rhein 1971) 55 – 64, esp. 62, pl. 25d (suggests the statue is Hellenistic)
G. Waywell, The Free-Standing Sculptures of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in the British Museum; A Catalogue (London 1978) 24 – 25, 48 – 50, 76, 118 – 19, no. 48, pl. 22 (assigns head to scale II: ‘heroic’ standing figures and places these figures around the podium; suggests the Mausoleum figure may have been depicted shooting a bow; Apollo could be included as an ancestor of Mausolus)
S. Hornblower, Mausolus (Oxford 1982) esp. 234 – 36 and 260 – 61, n. 304 (references and discussion of the tragedy featuring the mythical Mausolus and the significance of the statue on the Mausoleum)
K. Jeppesen, "Tot operum opus; Ergebnisse der dänischen Forschungen zum Mausoleum con Halikarnass seit 1966," JdI 107 (1992) 59 – 102, pls. 19 – 32, esp. 81 – 82 (suggests the Apollo could be an acroterion, for which architectural evidence exists)
S. Ruzicka, Politics of a Persian Dynasty, The Hecatomnids in the Fourth Century BC (Norman 1992) esp. 33 – 36 (the appearance of the sun god on earlier Halicarnassian coins indicates he is a city god)