547. Head Pendant

Condition

Parts are missing.

Description

Turquoise, rod-formed pendant in the shape of a bearded male head. The turquoise base mass renders the hair and the beard. A blob of yellow glass provides the skin of the face, another the applied nose, and two smaller ones the ears. The eyes are made of two overlapping disks of white and dark blue glass of gradually smaller diameters, allowing both to be visible. A thick band over the forehead and eyebrows of dark blue (appearing black) glass. Mouth, now missing, was an applied oval white mass of which tiny parts are still visible. Turquoise glass formed a suspension loop, now missing.

Remains of dark red sandy coating adhere to interior of tiny rod hole.

Comments and Comparanda

On Punic glass pendants in general, see comments on cat. 544. Male heads represent the largest group among Punic head pendants. 2004.10 belongs to a subgroup of male heads with sleek hair and beard (Seefried 1982, pp. 27, 92, plate I, type B.II), which are dated between the middle of the seventh and the fifth century BCE.

Provenance

By 1974–1988, Erwin Oppenländer, 1901–1988 (Waiblingen, Germany), by inheritance to his daughter, Ingrid Reisser, 1988; 1988–2004, Ingrid Reisser (Böblingen, Germany), sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004

Bibliography

von Saldern et al. 1974, p. 83, no. 227.

Seefried 1982, p. 92, no. 22.

Exhibitions

Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)