Fragment of a Glazed Tile with a Bearded Head
Unknown · Neo-Elamite period, 8th-7th century BC
Worn and small, this fragment of glazed brick or wall tile preserves the head of a bearded man wearing a tiara. The features are softened by erosion, but the outline of the beard and the tall headdress can still be made out, and traces of the coloured glaze cling to the surface. It is about seven centimetres across, and the museum is not certain whether it was a tile applied to a wall or a piece of a larger brick.
The piece dates to the Neo-Elamite period, in the eighth or seventh century BC, when the kings of Susa continued the local tradition of decorating buildings with moulded and glazed bricks. The tiara suggests a god or a king, and the fragment probably came from a frieze on a temple or palace. Elamite glazed brickwork was the direct ancestor of the famous archers and lions of the Persian palace at Susa displayed elsewhere in the museum. The fragment was found at Susa by the French mission and entered the Louvre through the division of finds.
Did You Know? Small as it is, the fragment links Elamite glazed brick to the archers of the Persian kings that decorated the same site centuries later.
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