Details

LOT 0239

South Arabian Alabaster Head of a Woman

6TH-4TH CENTURY B.C.

12 3/8 in. (3.66 kg total, 31.4 cm including stand).

Large female head with angular nose with straight ridge, rounded cheeks and chin, large sockets for inlaid eyes with rounded depressions in the centre of the eyes, grooved eyebrows and outlines of the eyes, the tapering neck long and cylindrical, the back left roughly tooled; mounted on a custom-made display stand.

Provenance

UK collection, 1990s.
Acquired on the UK art market, before 2000.
Private collection, Mr M.V., a London-based businessman.

Literature

Cf. Cleveland R.L., An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis, objects from the second campaign (1951) in the Timna Cemetery, Baltimore, pl.6 no.TC 914, for similar.

Footnotes

This finely carved calcite-alabaster head was originally set within a stela and inscribed with the name of the deceased. Six hundred of these funerary stelae were discovered in localities like Mārib, and other examples were later found during the excavations of the Awwam temple cemetery.