stela
- Museum number
- 125107
- Description
-
Part of a rectangular yellow sandstone high relief stela with a male face carved in high relief with oval eye-sockets, originally inlaid, and the line of a beard indicated by a neatly incised line framing the tapered chin; lower part (possibly with inscription) broken away.
- Production date
- 4thC BC-3rdC BC (about)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 34 centimetres (with stone base)
-
Height: 20 centimetres
-
Height: 8 inches
-
Thickness: 14.50 centimetres (with stone base)
-
Thickness: 10.50 centimetres
-
Width: 27 centimetres (with stone base)
-
Width: 18.50 centimetres
-
Width: 7 inches
- Curator's comments
-
Bowers catalogue entry
Funerary stela with male head
Sandstone
Height 20 cm, width 18.5 cm, thickness 10 cm
From Inabba in the upper Jawf, 20 km south-east of Qarnaw
ANE 1887-6-29,38 = 125107
Purchased from Sir Eduard Glaser (1852-1908)
This object was acquired at the site of Inabba in northern Yemen by the leading Austrian philologist and explorer, Eduard Glaser, who conducted his first trip to Southern Arabia in from October 1882 - March 1884 as part of his research for the Corpus des Inscriptions Sémitiques. He returned on three further occasions, namely travelling to Aden from April 1885 - February 1886, Marib during October 1887 - September 1888, and Aden to Sanaa via Bayhan from January 1892 - March 1894. Glaser was one of the first Europeans to travel throughout the region, and during the course of this he collected or recorded a total of 1,032 inscriptions. He subsequently sold part of his collection to the British Museum and Musée du Louvre, and the remainder was divided between the Kőnigliche Museen zu Berlin and the Kunsthistorischen Hofmuseum in Vienna.
The sculpture represents in low relief the face of a male individual with oval eye-sockets, originally inlaid, with his beard indicated by an incised line around his tapered chin. It is believed to have been inscribed with the name of the deceased on the lower portion but this has since broken away in antiquity and is missing.
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A cast is listed as available in the British Museum Facsimile Service 'Catalogue of Replicas from British Museum collections' (n.d.), in the series "West Semitic Inscriptions: South Arabian". One cast of this was purchased by Cecil Beaton who later wrote to Mr Barber in the Cast Service asking for more information about the original (Barber q.v., 1962).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2004-2005 17 Oct-13 Mar, California, Bowers Museum, 'Queen of Sheba: Legend and Reality'
- Condition
- Incomplete; lower part (with inscription?) broken away prior to mounting on a stone base; missing inlays in the eye sockets; heavily worn surfaces.
- Acquisition date
- 1887
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 125107
- Registration number
- 1887,0629.38
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: 103 (exhibition number)
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Miscellaneous number: XIII (stamped on the underside of the mount)
