Colossal statue of a man from the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos

Greek, around 350 BC
From modern Bodrum, south-western Turkey

Traditionally identified as Maussollos, of the Hekatomnid dynasty

This is the best preserved of the colossal dynastic figures from the Mausoleum, even though it has been reconstructed from at least seventy-seven fragments.

Sir Charles Newton found the figure on the north side of the site, where it had probably lain undisturbed since its fall from the building. He immediately claimed that the figure represented Maussollos himself, and that the statue had stood in the four-horse chariot on the summit of the Mausoleum, along with the colossal female statue found nearby. In fact, later research suggests that a total of thirty-six such colossal portraits once stood between the Ionic columns of the peristyle.

The statue is not intended as a true likeness, but a generic portrait of an Asiatic, probably representing one of Maussollos' Hekatomnid ancestors. The figure represented is clearly not Greek. The long hair, the thickened lips, the wide cheekbones, along with the closely cropped beard and drooping moustache follow contemporary Asiatic fashion. His garment, consisting of a long under-tunic of thick material, is not Greek; portraits of Greek men showed them bare-chested. Over this he wears a himation (cloak). His preserved right foot wears an elaborate type of sandal known as trochades.

G.B. Waywell, The free-standing sculptures o (London, 1978)