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Over Life-size Marble Head of a Goddess 2nd century BC 30-7-1 The detached, serene expression, frontal gaze, and over life-size scale of this head, which in other respects recalls the style of the Messenian sculptor Damophon, all suggest that it may have belonged to an actual cult statue. Too little survives of the complete statue to be totally certain of its original purpose or to suggest which goddess is specifically being represented. H. 42.0; Dia. 31.5 cm. UM neg. 140075. |
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Silver Tetradrachm ca. 302-301 BC Seleucus I Seleucia-on-Tigris mint 29-126-479, reverse Enthroned Zeus holding a Nike or personification of Victory in his outstretched right hand. The coin type is based, at least in a generalized way, on the Phidian cult statue of Zeus at Olympia, which by the end of the 4th century BC was perhaps the most famous statue in the Greek world. Nothing of these colossal images has survived antiquity intact. Of Phidias's masterpieces all that has been preserved with certainty are a few sculptor's tools, molds and bits of ivory excavated from his workshop at Olympia. Photo courtesy Mediterranean Section, Univ. of Pennsylvania Museum. |