Charles Ede Ltd (London), Catalogue 106 (March 1977) no. 13 (ill.); J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 98.

1977.02

Bronze Figurine of a Priestess

Purchased; said to be from Latium. Ht 7.5cm.

Intact and in good condition. The figure stands with left leg bent, holding forward a phiale in her right hand and a pomegranate raised in her left. She seems to wear a fillet or wreath.

The figure has a rather flattened form with concave back, exaggerated arms and summary treatment of the face. It is a votive object of a type made in some quantity in the later Republican period, from the third to the first centuries BC. A good number of very similar figurines from a third century BC context at Carsóli in Latium was published by Cederna in Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 1951, 193ff. and especially 199 fig. 10. There is a good general discussion of the type and its chronology by S. Haynes, “The Bronze Priests and Priestesses from Nemi”, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung 67, 1960, 34ff. See further M.C. Galestin, Etruscan and Italic Bronze Statuettes (Warfhuizen 1987).

Charles Ede Ltd (London), Catalogue 106 (March 1977) no. 13 (ill.); J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 98.