Head of a Youth

Carved in the round, this head of a youth has a distinctive hairstyle. The head is encircled by a twisted double cable of hair knotted over the forehead. The hair in front is parted in the middle with small curls on either side. At the back, the hair is vertically parted, with locks brushed forward to form large spiral curls. The head most likely depicts an ephebe, a male youth eighteen to twenty years old who performed two years of military service. Statues of ephebes were usually posted outside the city on the frontier where they trained in military tactics, hunting, and athletics. Several features, such as the way the top of the head has weathered and the square shape of the back of the neck, suggest that this head broke off a herm, a rectangular pillar topped by a bust used to mark boundaries, crossroads, and sacred places. Originally, herms were topped with portrait heads of the god Hermes, but by the 400s B.C., other figures related to Hermes began to appear. This herm may represent an ephebe in the guise of the youthful Hermes, a connection drawn from Hermes' patronage of athletic and military training. It may have been one of a group of portrait herms set up by ephebes as religious dedications.