LATE HELLENISTIC PERIOD, CIRCA 2ND-1ST CENTURY B.C.

Dr. A. Douglas Tushingham (1914-2002) was a leading Canadian archaeologist who studied the material culture and religious history of the ancient Near East. In the early 1950s, as the Director of the American School in Jerusalem, Tushingham excavated at a number of sites, including at Tell es-Sultan (ancient Jericho) with Kathleen Kenyon. Upon his return to Canada in 1953, Tushingham was first appointed Chair of Old Testament Studies at Queen’s Theological College, Queen’s University, Kingston, and in 1955 was named Head of the Art and Archaeology Division at the Royal Ontario Museum (the title was later changed to Chief Archaeologist, in 1964), where he remained until his retirement in 1979. Among his many achievements at the ROM, Tushingham promoted the archaeological research undertaken by the museum’s staff in Canada and across the world and was also intimately involved in researching and publishing the Iranian Crown Jewels, for which he was awarded a gold medal from Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1968.

This herm head is a late Hellenistic interpretation of Alkamenes’ Hermes Propylaois from the 5th century B.C. For a similar example, see no. 38 in M.B. Comstock and C.C. Vermeule, Sculpture in Stone: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.