Funerary relief of Hadirat Katthina, daughter of Sha'ad

Hadirat Katthina’s portrait, carved in high relief, shares many features with the approximately 3700 other Palmyran funerary reliefs known today. She faces forward, eyes open and alert, with incised eyebrows, irises, and pupils. Her oval face, turned slightly to her left, has a thin nose with wide nostrils, small mouth with full, closed lips, and dimpled chin. A long veil with scalloped upper edges covers most of her head along with a tightly bound “turban” with a central loop, but her long, thick hair nonetheless flows out from a central part in abundant waves. She wears a light, long-sleeved tunic and pulls a heavier fringed mantle tightly around her. Her right hand protrudes from her garment and her elongated fingers grasp its edge in a gesture associated with the virtue of modesty in ancient Roman funerary reliefs. Her lowered left arm crosses her body diagonally and the hand, with fingers extended, rests below her right elbow. Her long neck, with the pronounced fleshy folds conventionally called “Venus rings” by scholars of ancient art, is adorned by a beaded necklace, and she also wears pendant earrings and a jeweled ring on the now-broken little finger of her left hand. There are also slight losses to her right little finger and the tip of her nose.