Romano-Egyptian Terracotta Head of the Goddess Athena
£ 275.00
A fine Romano-Egyptian terracotta fragment portraying the head of the Greek goddess Athena, mounted on a custom-made base. Her facial features, now worn, are rendered with incisions, and so is her hair. This attractive piece features the goddess wearing a pseudo-Corinthian helmet raised above her head. As goddess of war strategy, Athena was often portrayed armoured in sculpture.
Date: Circa 1st Century BC-2nd Century AD
Provenance: North London gentleman, in storage from the 1970’s. Property of a West London gentleman
Condition: Fine, with natural wear due to ageing. Part of hair missing on bottom left side. Mounted on a custom-made stand. Please note that the measurements provided are including the stand.
SOLD
Greeks and Romans typically made votive offerings to mark important life transitions. Votive offerings often fulfilled obligations that individuals had made while praying. Unlike sacrifices, in which a gift to the gods was destroyed, offerings were typically deposited intact in the temples. One of the primary functions of Greek and Roman temples was as a storage place for these offerings. The temples themselves were a votive offering, dedicated by the community as a whole to a particular god or goddess.
To discover more about how terracotta statuettes were made, please visit our relevant post: The Making of Terracotta Statuettes in Antiquity.
