Head of an Official or Scholar in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, October 2009

Head of an Official or Scholar
Early Byzantine, 5th century AD
Marble (from Mt. Pentelikon near Athens)
Excavated in the agora of Assos (in present-day Turkey)

# 84.65

The elongated face and stylized beard help date this head to the early Byzantine period. Yet it also draws on artistic traditions from the Classical past- particularly earlier Greek and Roman images of philosophers, many of whom wore similar long beards- to represent its subject as a man of learning. This head probably once belonged to an honorific portrait statue of a local official or prominent scholar that stood in the ancient agora (marketplace) of Assos.

Text from the MFA label.