Cyrenaican funerary portraits in Malta

Abstract

The Museum Department of Malta possesses among its rich collection of antiquities, both local and foreign, a set of six portraits which should be appended to the remarkable series of Cyrenaican funerary busts studied and published by Miss Elizabeth Rosenbaum. Four of these busts (I–IV) are exhibited among the sculptures in the ‘Roman Villa’ Museum at Rabat and the other two (V and VI) are stored in the basement of the National Museum in Valletta.

It is not in the least surprising that Miss Rosenbaum omitted these busts in her otherwise most comprehensive catalogue of Cyrenaican portraits, which included those scattered in various European collections. The reason for this omission is that these sculptures have either been classified incorrectly or never published. The first to publish four of these portraits (I–IV) was Thomas Ashby, who gave only a short description of them without attempting a typological classification; he even called one ‘a little Phoenician in character’ and another ‘rather Etruscan-looking’. Shortly after, T. Zammit repeated, almost verbatim, Ashby's captions for I, II and IV, while omitting III.