Find of the week – uncovering the Portus head

Simon’s wonderful description of finding the sculpted head really brings the discovery, and the statue, to life. Ongoing analysis of the style and carving of the piece suggests that it dates to some time around the later 2nd or early 3rd centuries AD. Simon’s first view of the statue – Simon Keay © University of SouthamptonWe had originally thought that it might represent Ulysses, but careful ongoing research by our sculpture specialist suggests that it is more likely to represent a fisherman. It originally belonged to a full statue that no longer survives that will have formed part of a group of sculptures, possibly in some kind of garden setting. Unfortunately, however, nothing is known of its original position, and it was found amongst late 5th c. AD demolition debris from the Palazzo Imperiale.Excavations undertaken at the site in the 1860s revealed a number of sculptural fragments from the Palazzo Imperiale, as well as from elsewhere at Portus, emphasizing their richness and variety.Work on other statues, including our work on the Amazon statue from Herculaneum, has demonstrated that they were frequently painted to appear more lifelike. Sometimes statues could also be draped in textiles and given jewellery. Statues such as this therefore may have been perceived as being much more ‘alive’ to people of the time than we consider them today.We did a lot of work recording the head, including techniques that you will learn more about next week, like laser scanning and photographic imaging. We were able to create a precise three-dimensional model and in turn to produce 3D printed replica versions of the statue which help us to communicate its form and give us more opportunity to touch the surfaces, without interacting with the real object. Some new technologies called ‘haptics’ even allow us to ‘feel’ digital artefacts like this one, without even having to create 3D printed replicas.Simon and Rose photographing the statue – Hembo Pagi © University of Southampton