2ND-1ST CENTURY B.C.

Details

A MARBLE HEAD OF A PTOLEMAIC QUEEN AS ISIS
2ND-1ST CENTURY B.C.
Shown with upward-turned gaze to the left, her hair centrally parted falling in 'Libyan' curls framing her face and a double row of curls at the back, she wears a diadem with central hole for an attachment, probably a metal uraeus (now missing), mounted
6¾ in. (17 cm.) high

Special notice

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Lot Essay

PUBLISHED:
Images, pp.122-123 no. 38.

Cf. Ch-G. Schwentzel, Cinq Nouvelles tetes d'Isis ou de reines lagides, Cahiers de recherches de l'Institut d'Egyptologie et de Papyrologie de Lille III, Revue Cripel no. 20, p. 168, no. 2, pl. 10A-B, where the author discusses the 'Libyan' curl or corkscrew curl hairstyle which was first used on representations of Libya, the goddess personifying that region. At the end of the 3rd Century B.C. this hairstyle was introduced to Egypt and became characteristic of the iconography of Isis and of the Ptolemaic queens.

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