Terracotta Bearded Mask, Archaic II Cypriot statue
Terracotta Bearded Mask, Archaic II Cypriot, c. 625–575 BC. British Museum, 1873,0320.138.CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Archaic II

Terracotta Bearded Mask

Left side of terracotta head of a near life-size statue of a bearded man. Oval face with a large nose and a prominent cheek bones. The surviving eye socket is accented with applied ridges; eyebrows are feathered (i.e. incised), as is the moustache and the mouche below the lip; on the top of his head are a series of parallel strips divided by incised line, presumably inteded to show a cap (perhaps of leather) or strands of hair. The beard is carefully rendered as tiers of impressed snail curls. Made of buff-brown clay with a whitened surface, probably from accretion rather than firing. Dimensions: Height: 22 centimetres max Object Type: mask

Classification

Decoration techniques
Incised, Impressed and punctured
Material
Clay
Period
probablyIron AgeCypro-Archaic
Date
625 - 575 BC
Findspot
Idalion

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Collection

Provenance

  • Idalion

Identifiers

Accession no.
1873,0320.138, British Museum · Museum record

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