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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 8129570, member: 128351&quot;]Thanks for the reply. These terracotta busts or statuettes are very interesting because they were cheap artefacts made in huge quantities, easily affordable for ordinary people who were 90% of the empire&#039;s population but who are rarely documented by texts. The ancient authors always focused on the elites. What did they do with these artefacts? I have several of them, all fragments, representing Serapis, Ephesian Artemis, the face of a lady with elaborate coiffure and holes in the ears (to fix metal earrings, probably), and a smiling warrior with crested helmet, shield and a hole in his fist to insert some mini weapon. The crude statuettes of gods and goddesses were obviously pious objects to be put in modest domestic shrines, like today similar cheap statuettes of the Madonna or Jesus on the cross. The rich could have them in bronze, the poor in terracotta. I think the lady and the warrior must have been toys for children, the lady an equivalent of our Barbie™ dolls (you could adorn her with jewels), the warrior like our Action Joe or Playmobil... </p><p>This is why I wonder what could have been the purpose of a cheap clay bust of an emperor or empress... In Turkey I have seen portraits or busts of Atatürk displayed in public places, administrations, shops, but never in homes. Same for Syria&#039;s Hafez (or Bachar) al-Assad: they are watching you in every shop of Damascus but I have never seen them in homes, where there are only icons, madonnas or images of the Kaaba (according to the family&#039;s religion). The image of the emperor is documented in noble materials only: marble, bronze, gold and silver, porphyry, and of course the coins. They could also be carefully painted on wooden panels, like icons (there is a famous icon of Septimius Severus&#039; family, from Egypt, but there are not many parallels). </p><p>Of course one may think your bust represents not an empress but some lady with the same hairstyle, but it is an artefact fabricated in numbers, certainly not for a single family. IMO this is why the hypothesis of an empress makes sense. Maybe when Faustina was divinized there was a popular movement of piety for her, and&nbsp; cheap terracotta busts of her joined other gods&#039; statuettes in some families&#039; home shrines? I don&#039;t know what to think...[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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