Bust

Human bust of a male, crude depiction. Local style. "young male with elongated face, tending towards triangularity, thin neck. large, wide-open eyes, straight nose, small mouth pointed, cleft chin. fairly short-cut hair covers the upper portions of the ears. he wears a tunic. Execution: frontal, the face is smoothed. wedge-shaped eyelids of equal width. raised irises, pupils hollowed at the upper lids. lips very softly marked. lower row of curls modelled by short, close, vertical cuts, the rest of the hair is roughened with a chisel. the neck is slightly conical and appears to have been scratched with a knife. it is set off from the shoulders. the tunic is textured with a claw-chisel, the clavi are incised. "heart-shaped" torso, lower portion is left rough. the rear is flat and nicely polished."

Romano: "Two funerary busts from Beth Shean were assigned the same UPM accession number, 29-107-921. This one was reassigned in January 2005.

Frontal, armless bust of a young male with markedly asymmetrical features. Wiglike cap of short hair, with fringe along forehead rendered with short chisel strokes, while rest of hair surrounding head and covering ears is roughly chiseled. Hair covers ears, exposing only thickened earlobes. Elongated, triangular face with protruding forehead; straight nose, flat on top and sides. Large open eyes with thickened ridges; the upper lid of the left eye arches in a pronounced fashion; the right eye is more bulbous than the left; pupils are rendered as depressions close to upper lids. Small pursed lips with wide gouge separating nose and mouth. Upper lip forms a "V." Deep cleft in chin. Conical neck, set off from sloping shoulders. Garment (tunic?) is rendered as a ridge over the right shoulder and on front, an incised line over the left shoulder, and claw chisel over the front. Bust is flattened in front, tapering markedly. Left side of bust has a flattened polished surface. On the right side there is a smoothed triangular depressed area. Back of bust is flattened and polished with a small clamp cutting at the lower left edge with drilled holes ant each end and a small hole above. There are polished surfaces on the forehead, nose, chin, left side and back of bust, and lower back of head."