Tête d'une idole de type Porto Ferro

Porto Ferro type idol head

This flat disc head, with a receding chin and an aquiline nose starting almost at the top of the forehead, belonged to an exceptionally high idol, discovered, according to Thimme, in a sepulchral context with fragments of two statuettes of the same type and potteries, in the region of Castelsardo.

Neither the eyes nor the mouth are indicated: maybe they were painted. The statuette had a long neck, resolutely angular shoulders of an exaggerated width. The arms, folded at the elbows, merged with the wasp waist, created by approximately triangular notches between the arms and the slender torso. Below the waist, the statuette was schematically truncated, ending in a rounded or pointy shape. This lower body morphology made the fastening of the figure to the ground or to a kind of base easier and enabled it to stand.

In profile, the statuette was flat, except for the nose and the breast in relief, as well as a light swelling towards the buttocks (see reconstituted object Thimme 1980, p. 248, n°10) [1].

Published in: Thimme 1980, p. 248, n°9, description p. 362; Zimmermann 1993, p. 158, n°64.

[1] About Ozieri culture figurines, see Atzeni 1980, notably fig. 16, p. 29. For Porto Ferro type examples, see Thimme 1977, n° 7-14 (n° 8 is the Barbier-Mueller head; n° 12 and 14 were probably discovered along with it).