Testa-ritratto femminile di età adrianea proveniente dalle fondazioni della basilica paleocristiana a deambulatorio sulla via Ardeatina

During the excavation campaign of 2009 on the via Ardeatina a female head was found, reused as building material in the foundation of the early Christian basilica ‘a deambulatorio’. It represents a young woman with a personalized appearance and a complex hairstyle, formed by a ‘crown’ and a turban of multiple hair-braids, which is reminiscent of the official models of the Trajanic and early-Hadrianic periods. The results of the typological, iconographic and stylistic analysis provide a coherent framework that allows us to recognize in the head a portrait originally pertaining to a whole-length funerary relief, probably relating to a married couple. The relief was originally part of a funerary monument (perhaps inserted into its facade), erected along the via Ardeatina or the neighbouring via Appia.