Ceiling Tile with Female Face from the Dura-Europos Synagogue in the Yale University Art Gallery, October 2013

Tile with Female Face
ca. A.D. 245

Clay with layer of painted plaster
37.7 × 51.5 × 10.2 cm (14 13/16 × 20 1/4 × 4 in.)

Yale-French Excavations at Dura-Europos

1933.267

Probably about 450 tiles showing female heads, land and sea animals, fantastic beasts, Evil Eyes, vegetation, and inscriptions once covered the Synagogue ceiling, demarcating the sacred space with an otherworldly “sky.” This example (one of 234 preserved tiles) depicts a common type, the female face, which may represent the vegetative powers of nature. The figure’s mass of red hair sprouts leaves and flowers. Painted ceiling tiles were also used in private houses at Dura-Europos.

Culture: Syrian, Dura-Europos

Period: Roman (3rd century A.D.)

Classification: Paintings

Provenance: Excavated by the Yale-French Excavations at Dura-Europos (block L7, Synagogue), present-day Syria, 1928–37; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.


Bibliography:

Lisa R. Brody and Gail Hoffman, eds., Dura-Europos: Crossroads of Antiquity (Boston: McMullen Museum of Art, 2011), 339, no. 30, pl. 30.

Jennifer Chi and Sebastian Heath, eds., Edge of Empires: Pagans, Jews, and Christians at Roman Dura-Europos, exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 2011), 50, no. 33, fig. 2–19.

Text from: artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/5720