Head of a Woman from Palmyra in the Metropoltian Museum of Art, August 2007

Head of a Woman
Limestone
Syria, Palmyra
2nd-3rd century AD

Accession # 65.77, On Loan to the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art from the Department of Greek & Roman Art.

From the first century BC, the oasis city of Palmyra, in the northern Syrian desert, controlled most of the caravan trade routes from the East to the Mediterranean seacoast. Originally an independent Arabian principality, it became successively a vassal state, a free city, and a colony under under Roman control.

Lavishly decorated temples and processional streets provide evidence of the wealth of the city. The sculptures exhibited here come from impressive stone funerary monuments. Family vaults contained multiple burials in stone boxes sealed with relief images of the deceased. The figural style as well as the divine and human images and symbols reflect the mixed Greek, Syrian, and Iranian Parthian culture of the inhabitants.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.