Limestone Head of a Boy, probably from a Temple Boy Statuette

Cypro-Classical, c. 450–300 BCE · Limestone (probably) · Carved

A small head of a child, broken at the neck, in a fine stone with a warm pinkish-buff surface. The face is broad and rounded, with full cheeks, a small rounded chin and a wide mouth that turns up slightly at the corners. The nose is straight and the eyes have worn almost smooth, leaving soft hollows under the brow. A scrap of modern paper adheres to the neck break.

The hair is the best-preserved part. It is cut close to the skull as rows of short comma- and crescent-shaped locks in relief, set in overlapping tiers over the crown and curling forward around the temples and down over the sides of the head, where they cover the ears. In profile the curls are deeply cut and crisp at the back, while the face has lost most of its surface.

Commentary

The round, soft face and the cap of short curls mark this as the head of a young boy, and the likeliest source is a statuette of the so-called temple boy class. Temple boys are seated or crouching children, often shown with a cord of amulets across the chest and holding a bird or small animal, dedicated in Cypriot sanctuaries from about 450 BCE through the 4th century [1][5]. The largest groups come from Kourion (sanctuary of Apollo Hylates), Golgoi, Idalion and Tamassos, and several dozen temple-boy heads are known from Golgoi alone [1]. The old name rests on a discarded idea that they showed boys serving in the temple; they are now read as dedications by families placing a young child under divine protection, perhaps at a rite of passage or after a vow [1].

The date follows from the style. Short Greek-style hair belongs to the Classical votive repertoire: in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE Cypriot votaries adopt contemporary short Greek hairstyles, replacing the long Archaic hair and eastern headdresses [2]. The closest visual parallel is a limestone head of a child from Golgoi in the Louvre (AM 3206), with the same round smiling face and short hair, dated 425–375 BCE [3]. The Metropolitan Museum's temple boy from Kourion (74.51.2756), dated to the second half of the 5th century BCE, is carved in hard limestone with a pink surface much like the tone of this head [1]. The same child type was also made in clay: a mould-made terracotta head of a boy in the Metropolitan Museum (74.51.1452), probably from a temple-boy figure and dated about 325–300 BCE, has short hair rendered in thin grooves [4]. A range of c. 450–300 BCE covers the class, and the head offers no detail that narrows it further.

Two points remain uncertain. The material appears to be limestone from the photographs and the pink-toned surface matches Kourion temple boys, but a well-fired buff terracotta cannot be excluded without handling. And although the child's face argues strongly for a temple boy, a head of this kind could also come from a standing youthful votary; rows of curled locks occur on some late Archaic adult heads too, but there the face is that of a man.