Male Funerary Head
Unknown · c. 1500 BC
A bearded man gazes ahead with large eyes and a straight nose, his hair cut into a stiff fringe like the visor of a cap. Traces of colour survive on the unbaked clay, and the head is in unusually good condition for something so fragile. The features are individual enough that you can imagine meeting him, which is precisely the point of a portrait meant to accompany the dead.
The head comes from a collective vaulted tomb in the Royal City of Susa and dates to around fifteen hundred BC. Heads like this were placed next to the bodies, perhaps to preserve the identity of the person as the corpse decayed, or to receive offerings from the family. Several are displayed together here, and comparing them shows how each sculptor varied the beard, the hairstyle and the set of the mouth. The tradition seems to be unique to Susa. The piece entered the Louvre through the partage of finds from the French archaeological mission.
Did You Know? His visor-like fringe was a fashionable hairstyle in Susa around fifteen hundred BC and appears on several of the heads in this room.
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