Antefix Fragment

The antefix fragment preserves the frontal facing head of a female, perhaps the goddess Juno. She wears a diadem and her head was originally framed by a shell comprised of a repeating tongue pattern, which is now mostly missing. The face is long and thin with rounded lips drawn upwards and a long, straight and rather large nose. The left ear protrudes at nearly a ninety degree angle to the face and bears a large disc earring in the form of a rosette. The right ear is mostly missing but would have had a similar earring. The hair is arranged in flat scalloped waves around the head and falls on either side of the face, though only the left side survives. Atop the head, the figure wears a diadem decorated with a band of painted dots underneath painted tongues. The surviving shell surrounding the head repeats this motif with a band of painted dots ending in volutes at the bottom appearing beneath large tongues.

The polychromy consists of cream for the flesh, the dotted bands and the edges and centers of the tongues of the shell; black for the hair, eyes, brows, loops around each tongue in the diadem and shell and the dots in the dotted bands and rosette earring; light brown on the diadem base, the earring base and the back of the shell; dark brown in the curve of the ear, loops of the earring petals and vertical bars on the dotted band of the diadem; and a reddish brown for the spine of each tongue on the diadem and shell.