Head of Alexander the Great
401-600
Scroll
Head of Alexander the Great
401-600
Physical Qualities
Marble, pigment, 11.5 H x 8.5 W x 9 D cm.
Credit Line
Antioch Subscription Fund
Object Number
1938.714
Several small heads found in Antioch may have adorned small herms or tabletops or household shrines. A fascinating find is the small head of Alexander the Great. The conqueror's celebrated dreamy expression is evident, with traces of red (the ground color) in the eyes and in the hair. Everyone with a town house or a villa in the Antioch area likely had such a small, thematic statue of the divine Alexander, with his head turned slightly to the side and with the dreamy expression of death and deification at an early age. After all, without Alexander there would have been no Seleukos I to inherit the major share of Alexander's conquests and to rule them from the city named for his own father and also for his son, Antiochos I.
Asian Rotations 2024
Excavating Antioch: The Archaology of an Ancient City
"Antioch-on-the Orontes, III," Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1938, p. 118.
Christine Kondoleon, "Antioch The Lost Ancient City," Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, fig. 5, p. 95.
Inscribed: Tag, affixed to bottom, "a-167 S363/#951"
