Label Text:
Abundant jewelry and the elegant veiled dress emphasize the affluence of this woman, whose name was probably recorded in the Aramaic inscription on the upper left. During the second and third centuries, Palmyra was a flourishing trading center on the caravan route from the Mediterranean to Asia, and many of its merchant citizens profited by collecting tariffs on goods in transit. Wealthy families erected monumental funerary towers in which portrait reliefs marked the many interior burial spaces.
Palmyrene funerary sculpture, originally colorfully painted, combines elements of Classical naturalism with an eastern provincial fondness for stiff frontality and patterned ornament. In the hands of local sculptors, the reliefs became generic representations of aristocrats, rather than realistic portraits of individuals.
Tags:
portraits; women; fashion Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+1942.78 |
