Ivory hair pin. Tebtunis, Egypt. Roman Egypt, circa 27 BCE–395 CE.

This pin was used to keep in place, decorate and sculpt a woman’s hair. In the ancient Mediterranean, hair was one of women’s most noticeable and symbolic physical assets. Undone and loose hair was seen as seductive and morally corrupt. However, if a woman had her hair combed, styled and well kept, this meant that she was a woman of dignity and femininity. While ordinary hair pins would have been mostly wooden or made of bone, this particular pin is carved out of elephant ivory, which is more expensive, durable and likely used for special occasions.

-Emma Kim

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An encaustic portrait of a woman from a tomb in Tebtunis, Fayūm, Egypt. Roman Egypt, circa 125-140 CE. 6-21376.

The adult woman from this portrait faces eternity in her finest: а deep red mantle, a tunic with black clavi, a hefty golden chain necklace, and golden bar earrings with four pearls each. Hundreds of funerary panel paintings on wood have come from the Fayūm region. The dry climate of Egypt as well as their medium—in this case, pigments dissolved in wax—have ensured the preservation of their vibrant hues. Portraits like this were placed over the face of the mummified body of the deceased. Once the panel was securely wrapped to the mummy, its background was sometimes gilded.

-Brianna Chavez

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Kylix (cup) depicting a woman at an altar. Athens, circa 475-25 BCE. 8-923.

This kylix was found in Orvieto, Italy but was made in Athens in the fifth century BCE. The inside of this drinking vessel depicts a young woman wearing a heavy mantle over a generously pleated dress and a head covering on her head. She stands before an altar with a flower in her extended left hand. Absent the traditional libation bowl or other celebrants, the woman is likely offering a personal prayer rather than officiating a ritual. Greek women took active part in the religious rituals of their cities. They served as priestesses, organized rituals, maintained temples, washed cult statues and wove new garments for them, and dedicated offerings. These religious rituals, seen as key to the preservation of the polis, thus gave women visibility, agency and social recognition.

-William Sieving

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Female nude, bronze statuette. Etruria, circa 300 BCE. 8-4604.

The acquisition record of this object states that it came from Etruria. Etruscan artists were able bronze workers. This female nude may have been offered as a gift to an Etruscan goddess, such as Turan, the goddess of love and fertility. The statuette wears a stephane, a decorative headpiece traditionally reserved for goddesses. Although Etruscan in its identity and makers, the work is stylistically indebted to Greek art. The Hearst nude shares a number of similarities with Praxiteles’s fourth-century masterpiece, the Knidian Aphrodite, the first Greek goddess represented in the nude (see the following entry).

-Tara Madhav

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Lebes gamikos (nuptial bathing vessel) attributed to the Meidias Painter, terracotta. Athens, circa 450-400 BCE. 8-48.

This terracotta vessel was originally used in the most important ceremony in a Classical Greek woman’s life: her wedding. The bathing ritual both purified the bride and separated her from her life as a child. In this image, the bride, seated on a chair, is elaborately adorned by Eros, Nike, and her attendants. The interior setting refers to the woman’s domain: her home. The jewelry bespeaks the wealth of her father and new husband. It transforms her from an innocent child to a seductive woman. This lebes gamikos imagines the bride turning into the ideal wife: inside the home and artfully adorned to embrace her new responsibilities.

-Yvonne Gonzales

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Limestone votive figurine of a veiled girl playing a lyre. Cyprus, circa 600-475 BCE. 8-324.

Limestone figurines, such as this one of a veiled girl playing a lyre, are found in Greek sanctuaries and tombs. This one comes from Cyprus. Sculptures of lyre players aimed to please the divinities with the sweet sound of music. Depictions of the lyre appear in the sung poetry of Sappho, who lived in the same period on another Mediterranean island. The poet saw her instrument as “holy,” “divine,” and “sweet-toned.” She used it to sing of lovely young women, whose presence she summoned with her sweet-toned lyre. 

-Nicole Manssourian

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