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A note on the Berber head in London

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2012

Duane W. Roller
Duane W. Roller
Affiliation:
Department of Greek and Latin, The Ohio State University
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Abstract

The well-known ‘Berber Head’ in the British Museum, found at Kyrene in 1861, has long defied exact stylistic analysis. Its findspot provides no precise date, and ever since the excavators suggested that it was a piece from the fourth century BC, this dating has been sustained, generally through inertia. Yet recent scholars have become increasingly aware of the weakness of this date without offering specific alternatives other than a gradual down-dating. Its North African features indicate that it is a portrait of an indigenous ruler, and thus attribution must be based on the likelihood of such a person being honoured in Kyrene. It is herein suggested that it is a portrait of the Numidian prince Mastanabal, son of Massinissa, and that it dates to the time that Massinissa was a close associate of the king of Kyrene, the future Ptolemaios VIII of Egypt, or 163–148 BC. Mastanabal was a noted athlete and thus the piece may be a commemoration of one of his victories. Its commissioning would fit into his father's vigorous hellenization policy. Although the style remains difficult of analysis, certain features, especially the beard under the chin, support a second-century BC date.

Type
Shorter Contributions
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 122 , November 2002 , pp. 144 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 2002

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References

1 PLATE 2 (a). The British Museum label is ‘Bronze Head of a North African’. BM Bronze 268; Reinhard Lullies and Hirmer, Max, Greek Sculpture (revised and enlarged edn, New York 1960) no. 210Google Scholar; most recently, Rolley, Claude, La sculpture grecque 2: La période classique (Paris 1999) 306Google Scholar. The author would like to thank Andrew Stewart of the University of California at Berkeley, Judith Swaddling and Neil Adams of the British Museum, and especially Sally-Ann Ashton of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, for their advice and assistance.

2 Smith, Robert Murdoch and Porcher, Edwin, History of the Recent Discoveries at Cyrene (London 1864) 42–3Google Scholar.

3 Smith and Porcher (n.2) 94; see also Mitchell, Lucy M., A History of Ancient Sculpture (London 1883) 628Google Scholar, an indication of how quickly the traditional interpretation became standard.

4 Rolley (n. 1) 306.

5 Neil Adams of the British Museum is currently engaged in a doctoral thesis which includes an examination of the head and its role at the Temple of Apollo, and communicated this conclusion to the present author (April 2001).

6 Smith and Porcher (n.2) 94.

7 British Museum 1000; Lullies and Hirmer (n.1) nos. 212, 213. The controversy over the identification of this portrait (for which see Waywell, G.B., The Free-Standing Sculptures of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in the British Museum (London 1978) 21–5)Google Scholar is not relevant here.

8 Athens, National Museum 6439; Lullies and Hirmer (n.l)nos. 238, 239.

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14 Typical of recent scholarship is Huss, Werner, ‘Kyrene. 1. Geschichte’, Der Neue Pauly 6 (1999) 1003Google Scholar: ‘endete urn 440 die Herrschaft der Könige. In nachalexandrischer Zeit…’

15 FGrHist 234 F 7, 8.

16 The major source is the treatise De Bello Africo; see also Livy, Epit. 110-14; Suet. Jul. 39, 56, 66; Plut. Cat. M., Caes. 52-5; App. BCiv. 2.44-110; Dio 43.2.13; Rawson, Elizabeth, ‘Caesar, civil war and dictatorship’, in CAH 92 (1994) 434–6Google Scholar.

17 Polyb. 14; Livy 25.42; App. Pun.; Camps, Gabriel, Massinissa, Libyka-Archéologie-Epigraphie 8.1 (1990)Google Scholar; Walsh, P. G., ‘Masinissa’, JRS 55 (1965) 149–60Google Scholar.

18 Other than coin portraits, there are no certain contemporary portraits of Massinissa. The coins (Mazard, Jean, Corpus Nummorum Numidiae Mauretaniaeque (Paris 1955) nos. 17–36Google Scholar) all show the same portrait, a left-facing bust of a mature bearded man with a laurel wreath, bearing no resemblance to the Berber head. The Pompeian wall painting depicting Massinissa and Sophonisba is probably from tragedy and has no continuity with the time of the king himself. No other portrait has been identified without question (Hafner, German, ‘Das Bildnis des Massinissa’, AA (1970) 412–21)Google Scholar.

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20 Louvre Bj 1092, 1093. See Walker, Susan and Higgs, Peter (eds), Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth (London 2001) nos. 44, 45Google Scholar.

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22 Württembergisches Landesmuseum SS.176; Walker and Higgs (n.20) no. 29; see also no. 28.

23 PLATE 2 (b) (Getty 88.AA.330). Smith (n.10) nos. 57, 59, 60.

24 PLATE 2 (c) (Royal Ontario Museum 96.12.125); see also no. 140; Milne, J.H., ‘Ptolemaic seal impressions’, JHS 36 (1916) 87–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.