PULA SITES
The female head features a hairstyle characteristic of the mid-1st century CE, similar to that worn by Empress Agrippina Minor, wife of Emperor Claudius and mother of Nero. The dimensions of the head suggest the statue was 170-180 cm tall, slightly exceeding the natural height of the depicted Roman woman, whose average local female height could have ranged from 155-165 cm. Its discovery in a public space on the forum, the quality of the marble, and the statue's dimensions indicate a possible belonging to a group of statues of members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, under the auspices of the state imperial cult. The facial features do not match those of Agrippina Minor, but it is certain that it is a portrait of her contemporary.
The head was found in a room adjacent to the southeastern corner of the forum's portico, within a public building erected at the end of the 1st century BCE or the first half of the 1st century CE. This building was open to the forum on its western side through a portico, and to the main city street (decumanus), parallel to the forum's eastern side, through another portico on its eastern side. The room's floor was paved with multicolored marble tiles arranged in a geometric pattern, and the lower part of the walls was clad with white marble slabs and marble profiles. In the center of the eastern, back wall of the room, opposite the entrance from the forum portico, a rectangular pedestal was situated, possibly a statue base. This pedestal could have held either the marble statue of the woman whose head was found or the marble statue of a military commander in armor, which was discovered during the same excavation.
Over the ruined early imperial building between the forum and the decumanus portico, a wall was erected in the post-antique period, into which the halved torso of a larger-than-life marble statue of a military commander in armor was incorporated as common building material. The statue, made of Pentelic marble and originally 220-230 cm tall, could have represented an emperor or a member of the imperial family, and today the prevailing opinion is that it dates to the 2nd century CE. The original location of the armored statue, as well as the lost statue to which the female head belonged, should be sought near the discovery site.
