Some Problems of Romano-Parthian Sculpture at Hatra

Abstract

In 1964 there was found in Temple C at Hatra a life-size marble head with cleanshaven face (PI. V, 1 and 2), now in the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad. It was lying on the podium behind the altar at the south end of the temple, and would seem to have fallen there from the place in which it had been set. The head, of which the face is extremely well preserved, appears to have been deliberately cut from the body across the neck, just below the chin. But of the body no trace has as yet come to light in Temple C or elsewhere. The head, with its heavy, fleshy countenance, its lack of moustache and beard, its furrowed brow, facial folds, and full chin, is clearly the portrait of an elderly Roman. These features immediately distinguish it from the rather lean, smooth, flat-cheeked, moustached and bearded portraits of Hatrene kings, noblemen and so forth. Furthermore, it must be the portrait of a Roman prior to Hadrian's time, when, as is well known, thick curly hair and thick curly beards and moustaches came into fashion for men in the West.

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