Head of Hades

Catalogue Number	60
Inventory Number	85.AD.105 Deaccessioned
Typology	Head
Location	Morgantina, Sicily
Dimensions	H: 26.7 cm; W: 20.4 cm

Pinkish in color (Munsell 5 yr 7/4); in the back, the clay is a lighter hue (5 yr 8/2), with a friable, porous consistency. The surface is coated with a layer of greenish diluted clay and a layer of whitish slip (calcite?). Polychromy: light blue (beard), pink (neck, face, lips), and reddish brown (curls of hair). The added pigments would have been applied after the firing process.

The head is broken off on a line with the neck; several curls from the beard and hair are missing; the polychromy is worn away in many places. There are traces of black (from combustion?) on the left cheek and on the curls. The surface is heavily encrusted with clay/dirt and clay/carbonate mixture. There are numerous areas of pigment loss and ground loss. Pigment areas are powdery and fragile, adhering only loosely to the surface.

– by 1982–85, Maurice Tempelsman (New York, NY), sold through Robin Symes (London, England) to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1985.

C. C. Vermeule, A Catalogue of a Collection of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities Formed by a Private Collector in New York City during the Past Few Decades (Cambridge, MA, 1983–84), no. 11; Acquisitions 1985, p. 186, no. 19; Color of Life 2008, no. 20, pp. 136–37; Lyons, Bennett, and Marconi 2013, pp. 53 and 192, fig. 133.

The male head is characterized by a voluminous beard and a thick hairstyle that covers the entire cranium. Both beard and hair consist of hand-worked thick, spiraling curls that were applied before firing. The face is squared off; the forehead is low and wreathed by a regularly shaped border of hair; the cheekbones are high, and the eyebrows straight. The almond-shaped eyes are defined by deep incisions made while the clay was still damp; the iris is rendered through a shallower incised line, and the eyelids are indicated by a light swelling. The nose is straight and narrow, the lips are fleshy, barely open, and not joined at the corners; the upper lip is more thoroughly modeled and the lower lip is almost straight. The transition from the smooth cheeks to the curls of the beard is rendered with finely incised lines, and the undulating shape of the moustache is formed by an overlaid layer of clay with oblique lines cut into it.

The facial features are inscribed in the face with a rigid linearity and, in its original appearance, the vibrant intensity and the abstract quality of the applied pigments would have been meant to express the dramatic epiphany of the god. As the discontinuous break on a line with the neck indicates, the head belonged to a larger figure, probably a statue.

This very peculiar head comes from Morgantina, a settlement in central Sicily. Its archaeological context was confirmed by the discovery of terracotta statue fragments in the area of the Thesmophorion sanctuary at San Francesco Bisconti in Morgantina, site of the women’s cult of Demeter. Among the fragments of drapery and limbs, probably detached from large-scale sculptures, a number of hand-shaped spiral curls were found that are identical to those on this head in terms of dimensions, style, color, and fabric.¹

The extramural sanctuary of San Francesco Bisconti, the most important in Morgantina dedicated to the goddesses Demeter and Persephone, was continuously occupied over a long period of time between the sixth and third centuries BC. It comprises a complex of cultic sacella and naiskoi built on artificial terraces cut into the hillside.² This sanctuary is the presumed context for a life-size statue of Demeter in marble and limestone, now exhibited in the Museo Archeologico di Morgantina in Aidone, as well as two sets of marble acroliths—heads, hands, and feet—belonging to seated cult statues of Demeter and Persephone.³ In interpreting the head’s iconography, it is important to consider that it had appeared on the antiquities market together with a terracotta female head wearing a polos. The female head is of similar dimensions and displays an identical technical and stylistic rendering of the facial features: voluminous masses of hair, incised eyes, straight nose, and a mouth defined by an undulating upper lip and downturned outer corners. These characteristics make its association with this bearded head almost certain. Considered together, the presumed findspot in the Thesmophorion sanctuary and the possible connection with the image of a female deity would allow us to identify the pair as Hades and Persephone, central figures of ancient Sicilian worship.⁴

Both the articulation of the sanctuary architecture and the types and peculiar placement of votive offerings in various areas clearly allude to the cult of Persephone and her mother, Demeter, which was closely tied to agricultural fertility, female fecundity, and women’s roles as brides and mothers. In this context, the abduction and rape of Kore-Persephone, her marriage to Hades, and her cyclical return to earth (the kathados and anados) on which the flourishing of nature depends, were understood by the worshipers as the model of mortal marriage, closely intertwined with life and death and with female and natural bounty.⁵ In particular, Kore’s abduction was marked as a metaphor for the crucial and violent passage between maidenhood and a woman’s new status as a bride, a moment particularly celebrated within the ancient civic community.⁶

The god of the Underworld, like male figures generally, is infrequently represented in the coroplastic production of Sicily, but occurs somewhat more regularly in Morgantina. From sanctuary deposits at the site, Hades has been identified in a small group of large-dimension statuettes, representing a young, beardless male standing figure wrapped in a himation that covers the legs, datable to the third century BC. In some examples, his arm is bent forward in a sacrificial gesture; he wears the characteristic wreath of the bridegroom; in one case, he holds a turquoise snake, a typically chthonic attribute. According to Bell, the young man identified as Hades is represented as beardless in his role of bridegroom on the occasion of his wedding with Persephone.⁷

Hades and Persephone are also the main characters in scenes depicted on the pinakes dedicated as anathemata in the Persephoneion at Mannella, near Locri, mainly datable to 490–450 BC. They depict the various episodes of the myth and the rituals celebrated in honor of the goddess in connection with the passage from childhood to adulthood, and in particular from the status of kore to that of nymphe. In the pinakes, the god plays the dual role of Kore’s abductor and Persephone’s bridegroom in the Underworld. In the first subject, one of the most frequently represented among the different iconographic variants, Hades is identified with certainty only as an adult with full beard and curly or wavy hair. The beardless young abductor depicted in some pinakes, by contrast, has been extensively discussed and is interpreted by some as a mere mortal: in this case, the scene could be a symbolic representation of a ritual celebration of nuptials inspired by the mythological event.⁸

In the pinakes belonging to the group of the “consenting rape,” Hades and Persephone are represented as a divine pair sitting calmly in a quadriga, Persephone having already achieved her status as a bride; there is no allusion to the violence of the act.⁹ The divine pair is also extensively depicted in the pinakes of the anakalypteria (unveiling) group, which shows Hades and Persephone, enthroned as Queen of the Underworld, in a royal, solemn attitude, like two simulacra, receiving offerings from other deities. In such images, Hades is shown wrapped in a himation that covers the lower part of his body; he may hold any of a variety of attributes (a pomegranate, a scepter, a phiale, wheat ears, or a goose). He wears a long beard and moustache, and his hair is either tied with a ribbon, wreathed with leaves or flowers, or adorned with a diadem. In some examples (type 8/10), the presence of a door may recall, as a visual synecdoche, the thalamos (bridal chamber), the realm, or a cultic place.¹⁰

Hades’s iconography is generally quite problematic and can entail interpretive ambiguities. Certain distinctive elements, nevertheless, rather than physiognomic features per se, can support his identification: an enthroned position next to a paredra (consort); the half-face representation; visual allusions to the realm of the Underworld; or the presence of a scepter and, in some cases, a cornucopia, a snake, or Cerberus.¹¹ There is another remarkable group of pinakes, also from the area of the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore in Francavilla di Sicilia, a center that in the fifth century BC was under the political influence of Syracuse. In this group—derived from Locrian prototypes, as is evident from various stylistic and iconographic aspects—the abduction scene recurs with the representation of Hades and Persephone as a divine couple on a quadriga in the schema of the consenting rape, or enthroned in their roles as sovereigns of the Underworld (theogamiai group), alone or with other deities. In the epiphaniai group, the two heads are depicted in silhouette, detached from any mythological description in order to underscore the essentially abstract and solemn values of the image.¹² In the Francavilla pinakes, Hades displays the usual features but also more peculiar details alluding to those epikleses (invocations) that better help to connote the god: for example, the wreath or garland, probably of roses, alludes to Zeus Katachthonios (“Underworld Zeus”), who is also assimilated with Hades in his role as sovereign of the Underworld; or to Zeus Meilichios (“kindly” or “honeyed” Zeus), a beneficent figure who was associated with rites of expiation and purification. In some pinakes, Hades is also compared to Zeus Eleutherios (“Deliverer”) by holding an eagle-headed scepter and wearing a garland of oak leaves. The cult of Zeus Eleutherios flourished particularly in Syracuse after the fall of Thrasybulus in 466 BC and the subsequent institution of democratic government.¹³

In Attic vases and especially in Apulian red-figure vases of the fourth century BC, the Underworld couple is extensively depicted seated or standing inside a naiskos surrounded by various mythological figures in lively scenes characterized by the decorative exuberance peculiar to South Italian pottery. In a volute krater from Canosa datable to 320 BC, for example, Hades demonstrates his majesty through an eagle-headed scepter and sumptuous garments while Persephone, wearing a diadem and veil, stands before her bridegroom holding a four-headed torch; a volute krater by the White Saccos Painter is characterized by a reprisal of the schema of the two enthroned deities that is seen in the pinakes.¹⁴ This iconographic model of the couple, repeatedly illustrated on the pinakes of Locri and Francavilla, shows them in their chthonic aspect but also in a positive role as givers of fertility, possibly enthroned in a solemn, epiphanic vision. After more than a century, this model was reproduced again in the Getty’s head of Hades connected to the near twin head of Persephone, both of which were probably installed within a sacellum in the Thesmophorion of Morgantina.¹⁵ Another iconographic typology, which was already codified in the fifth century BC in specific contexts, centered on the figure of Persephone; it recurred especially in the area of Syracuse, to which both Francavilla and Locri were connected politically and culturally.¹⁶

This interpretation is necessarily hypothetical, given the paucity of male cult sculptures recovered from sanctuaries dedicated to Demeter and Persephone and the absence of a precise archaeological context.¹⁷ Nevertheless, analysis of the physiognomic and formal elements allow the placement of this head in a context influenced by a number of works of post-Phidian derivation, characterized in some cases by the coloristic effects of the red hair and blue beard. In the fourth century BC, this virile type, defined by the dense mass of hair and voluminous beard, was adopted for a diverse array of deities, such as Dionysos, Hades, and Zeus, evidencing the iconographic contamination that was quite common in the Hellenistic period. In this instance, however, further identifying elements are lacking.

In the rare representations of Hades, the Underworld god often shares traits with Zeus, especially when Zeus takes on chthonic connotations linked with the sphere of natural fertility, as with Zeus Meilichios or Zeus Katachthonios. These traits, as noted above, are assimilated to Hades in the pinakes of Locri and Francavilla.¹⁸ In sculpture, a statue of Zeus Katachthonios datable between 440 and 430 BC is known to have been made by Agorakritos, and it has been recognized in the so-called Dresden Zeus, which is characterized by distinctively intense chiaroscuro tones, especially notable in the hair and beard.¹⁹

A number of physiognomic details—the ringlets of the beard, the treatment of the hair under the lower lip, the accentuated cheekbones, and the mustache—place the Getty’s head within an iconographic tradition that runs from the archetype of the Phidian colossus in the Temple of Zeus at Olympia; continuing through the head of Zeus from Cyrene, also traceable to the typology of the Dresden Zeus; and finally recognizable in the middle-Italic and Etruscan contexts in a number of terracotta bearded heads, such as the one in the architectural decoration of the temple at Lo Scasato at Falerii, in Faliscan territory, dated to the fourth century BC. It signals the persistence of the Phidian artistic model, which enduringly influenced generations of artists.²⁰

In the fourth century BC as well, in two coinage series of Syracuse—datable to after 348 BC, during the Timoleontic period, and imitated in the issues of other Sicilian towns—the profile head of Zeus Eleutherios can be seen, with a long beard and curly hair held back by small olive branches. In particular, one of the series was thought to have been derived from the staters of Elis-Olympia, minted for the first time after 421 BC and influenced by the work of Phidias, which continued to evolve typologically until the middle of the fourth century BC.²¹ Morgantina, during its war against the Romans between 213 and 211 BC, also produced a silver litra characterized by the head of Zeus Eleutherios; on the reverse is the legend Sikeliotan, interpretable as an expression of the town’s freedom and independence in this critical period.²²

It is difficult to connect the Getty’s head closely with the Syracusan coins of the second half of the fourth century BC because the images on the coins rarely find exact iconographic correspondences in other media; nevertheless, stylistically the head can be considered as a local “baroque” or stereotyped interpretation of a noble typology elaborated within the classical Phidian tradition, which characterizes the artistic production of Sicily in this period. In this sense, the reprisal of classical motifs during the age of Timoleon in a production associated with the religious sphere was intended to express, in a conservative and recognizable language, the bond to an artistic model that still felt alive and distinguished in order to represent religious and political ideals.

Given the lack of comparable male terracotta sculptures from archaeological contexts, it is difficult to bracket the chronology of the piece. Some features, such as the mouth shape and the general facial structure, seem to be related stylistically to the late fifth century BC, but the possibility that these elements represented a stylistic heritage from the second half of the fourth century BC, drawn from an earlier prototype, a period when Syracusan models dominated the artistic production of Morgantina, cannot be ruled out.²³

The most distinctive feature in the definition of the face—the incised line in the rendering of the eyes—is found in Magna Graecia and Sicily in a number of fictile heads that date from the sixth century BC. Examples include a head, probably of a sphinx, from Agrigento (550–530 BC); a head from Caulonia (late sixth century BC) now in the Museo Nazionale di Reggio Calabria; a large head of a female deity from Medma (late sixth to early fifth century BC); and a number of protomes from Locri, where the delineation of the eyes through deep incision appears to have been fairly common.²⁴ The same detail, which may point to bronze prototypes, is also found in the Etruscan milieu. A female head from the Campetti votive deposit at Veii, not far removed from this piece in the treatment of the lips, eyebrows, and nose, finds parallels in typologies dating from the Classical period and is probably assignable to the middle of the fifth century BC. The possibility that the eyes and the incisions in this piece were refined with color in order to give the face greater expressive intensity cannot be excluded.²⁵ On the other hand, it seems improbable that lashes in bronze or any other material were inserted into the incision. This practice was more common on marble statues (such as the female head from the sanctuary of Hera Lacinia in Crotone and a marble head from Metaponto), though metal ornaments such as earrings did often decorate terracotta heads and votive busts.²⁶

The polychromy, in particular the blue beard, clearly had symbolic meaning; blue was emblematic of eternity, due to its resemblance to the color of the sky, as well as being indicative of power and worth.²⁷ From the Homeric age and according to a convention deriving from Egypt and Middle Eastern traditions, the color blue particularly connoted the gods and was used in literature for its evocative and poetic meanings, especially in relation to Poseidon, Dionysos, and Hades. In fact, blue is only used for the representation of mortals when the character is already dead or transfiguring through the intervention of a god.²⁸ In sculpture, the most famous example is the “blue-bearded” monster from the pedimental group of the Old Athena Temple in Athens, datable to 575–550 BC; here, too, the bright color could be a figurative translation of a literary and poetic convention.²⁹

Appendix: This head was subjected to the following analyses: energy dispersive XRF of pigments and ground; microscopic and microchemical analysis of the blue pigment; infrared analysis of the rose color; and determination of the terracotta’s firing temperature by means of thermomechanical and thermoluminescence analysis. The results confirmed the authenticity of the piece and the dating proposed here.

Results: Pigment is Egyptian blue. The reddish-brown color contains an iron oxide pigment (ocher); a high lead content also suggests the presence of lead white. The firing temperature of the terracotta was approximately 785°C. The pigments found on the head are consistent with those used at the proposed date of origin.

Notes