A masks of a lady carrying a Phoenician coiffure that’s distinctive on the archaeological file has been found on the Tophet cemetery and sanctuary within the suburbs of Carthage in Tunisia. The sculpture dates to the late 4th century B.C. and is believed to have been a votive providing.
The Tophet of Carthage was open-air sacred precinct that was in use as a cemetery and temple from the eighth to the 2nd century B.C. It’s replete with burials, notably of kids and animals, constructions and ritual supplies linked to the worship of Tanit, goddess of fertility and the moon, and her consort Baal Hammon, god of the solar and seasonal renewal.
The small head was unearthed in an excavation of the temple of Baal Hammon and Tanit on the Tophet. It was carved from a block of high-quality white marble and depicts a lady with a peaceful visage, delicate lips and a hairstyle seen depicted within the temples of japanese Phoenicia (modern-day Lebanon).
Earlier votive choices discovered at Tophet had been collectible figurines product of clay or easy stones with inscribed dedications. That is the primary marble votive of such refinement and class discovered on the web site, and it means that it was devoted to the deities of the sanctuary by an aristocratic particular person or household petitioning the gods or expressing gratitude with the best high quality providing.
There are traces of surviving polychromy on the floor of the marble. Evaluation of the marble and the paint will pinpoint their origins. If the masks was domestically made, the stylized design was instantly impressed by Levantine iconography, which means Punic sculptors built-in historic Phoenician motifs into native spiritual imagery. Alternatively, the article itself was imported from the japanese Mediterranean.
After evaluation and conservation are completed, the pinnacle will go on show on the Carthage Museum.
