The Satala Aphrodite is an over-life-sized head of a bronze Hellenistic statue discovered in Satala (classical Armenia Minor, present-day Sadak, Gümüşhane Province, Turkey). Probably created in the 2nd or 1st century BC in Asia Minor, it was acquired by the British Museum in 1873, a year after its discovery. It has been widely admired since its discovery and likened to the Aphrodite of Knidos by some scholars.
It is usually assigned to the Greek goddess Aphrodite, but has been associated with her Armenian equivalent Anahit, whose major temple was located not far from Satala. Consequently, head has been widely depicted in Armenian culture as a symbol of the country's pre-Christian heritage. Although not found in modern-day Armenia, there have been unsuccessful efforts to move the fragments to Armenia.
Discovery and acquisition by the British Museum
The head was found in 1872 by an old man named Youssouf who was digging in his field with a pickaxe, at a depth of around , near the village of , in what was once the Roman fortress of Satala, on the Kelkit River, north of Erzincan (then in the Ottoman Empire, now Turkey). The man uncovered fragments of a bronze statue, including the head and a hand. Arthur Frothingham reported two decades later that according to locals the fragments were found in the process of making a threshing floor. The head was acquired in Constantinople by Savas Kougioumtsoglou, a Greek antiquities dealer, who passed it to another dealer, , who was later Ottoman ambassador to Italy. Photiades took it to Rome, where it was sold to the art dealer Alessandro Castellani, an Italian goldsmith and collector, who in turn sold it to the British Museum in 1873.
Gunning noted that "extraordinary efforts" were made to acquire the statue. She argues that it was sold in violation of both Ottoman and Italian laws. Bartın University archeologist Şahin Yıldırım said the head was "smuggled" from Turkey. Castellani bribed Italian customs officials to export his collection. The acquisition was negotiated by Charles Thomas Newton, the museum's Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Newton appealed directly to British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, who agreed to provide £27,000 (£2 million in 2021) for Castellani's collection.
The hand was donated by Castellani to the British Museum in 1875. The rest of the statue was never found, despite excavations by Alfred Biliotti and David George Hogarth. As of 2022, the fragments are displayed at the museum's Room 22 in a glass case over a ventilation grille.
Description
The head is high and in circumference. It weighs and the bronze is 2–3 mm thick. The back of the head and neck are severely damaged, while the top of the head was damaged during excavation. The face has largely been preserved, but shows signs of oxidisation, while the front of the neck had two faults in casting, which have been repaired by the insertion of strips of bronze. The eyes originally had either inlaid gemstones or glass. The hair is waved with curls on the forehead and ringlets on the sides, while the mouth is slightly open. William Lethaby described the face as wide with a "radiant yet disdainful expression", while Allan and Maitland suggested that the subject is in a "pensive mood".
Herbert Maryon described its creation as a good example of a technique which began in the 4th century BC:
Maryon noted that besides the bridges, the inside of the head contains a number of fingermarks, which proves that the core "could not have been made first". The hair was cut into curls with a chisel.
The left hand, long, which was found together with the head, holds a fragment of drapery. Lâtife Summerer suggested that the original statue was more than in height.
Origin
The sculpture was initially dated to the 4th century BC, but this was subsequently questioned and it was placed in the 2nd century BC. Modern scholars and the British Museum place its creation in the 2nd or 1st century BC. Sara Anderson Immerwahr argued that its style is indicative of a 2nd century BC dating. Babken Arakelian also argued in favor of the 2nd century BC, while Reynold Higgins suggested that "it may be a cast from a mould made in ". Lucilla Burn argues for a late Hellenistic date, while Terence Mitford suggested it is from the "late Hellenistic or early Roman period". Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway writes that it is dated no earlier than the Augustan period.
Most scholars agree that it was probably created in Asia Minor. James R. Russell suggested western Asia Minor. Lethaby suggested that it is a work in an Alexandrian style.
Matthew P. Canepa described it as of "Hellenistic workmanship". Dyfri Williams and Lucilla Burn believe it came from a Greek or Hellenistic cult statue. Reynold Higgins suggested that "it may be a Greek or Hellenistic original, or a Roman copy".
In 1878 the German archaeologist Richard Engelmann, who first described it in detail, considered it a replica of the Aphrodite of Knidos (Cnidian Aphrodite).; Translated into Armenian by the Mekhitarists of Venice: Olivier Rayet and Zhores Khachatryan believed it was either a replica of Aphrodite of Knidos or was inspired by it. Vrej Nersessian noted that it is "now generally recognized" that its style reflects that of Scopas rather than that of Praxiteles (the author of the Cnidian Aphrodite), because of the "low broad forehead, the intensely gazing deep-set eyes, and the large heavy nose, are all characteristic of the strongly marked individuality of that sculptor's heads".
Subject
As early as 1873 Charles Thomas Newton identified the head with Venus. It has been generally assigned to Aphrodite. However, this has not been universally accepted, with Otto Benndorf suggesting commonalities with male deities, such as Apollo or Dionysos. Babken Arakelyan found Artemis to be a more probable subject than Aphrodite.
Association with Anahit(a) and Armenia The Armenian scholar Ghevont Alishan, in his 1890 book Ayrarat, asserted that the head represents Anahit (from Iranian Anahita or Anaïtis), the Armenian equivalent of Aphrodite. Some scholars have adopted this view, based on the proximity of the location of its discovery (Satala) to a major temple of Anahit in Erez (Eriza) in present-day Erzincan, around south of Satala. The temple at Erez, which "enjoyed great fame", was established, according to tradition, by Tigranes the Great in the first century BC and was the "wealthiest and most venerable in Armenia" per Cicero. Both Satala and Erez were located in the Acilisene (Եկեղեաց, Ekełeats‘) province of classical Armenia Minor.
Anahit's cult in Acilisene was so great that it was known as Anaetica (the land of Anahit/Anaïtis). Her cult at Eriza was closely linked with the Armenian monarchy, with kings travelling annually to the goddess's festival. Dickran Kouymjian wrote that it was "probably imported into Armenia by the royal court." Sirarpie Der Nersessian noted that tradition says Greek statues were brought from the Hellenistic cities by Tigranes the Great, while George Bournoutian argued that the statues were brought to Armenia by Greek priests and cults. After Armenia's conversion to Christianity in the early 4th century, Anahit's images were destroyed. Lethaby suggested that the head and hand "bear manifest evidence of violent destruction" of the "Greek statues of bronze brought to Armenia".
The British Museum describes the work as a "bronze head from a cult statue of Anahita in the guise of Aphrodite or Artemis." The authors of a 2002 British Museum publication described it as being "in Hellenistic style" but "identified as a representation of the Iranian goddess Anahita." Jones, Craddock, and Barker described it as an "eastern representation" of Aphrodite. Nina Garsoïan suggested that it is of a "mixed Greco-Iranian type." Mardiros Ananikian wrote in The Mythology of All Races (1925) that it is a "Greek work (probably Aphrodite)" that was "worshiped by the Armenians."
Soviet art historians wrote in 1962 that the head, found in Armenia's western regions, may represent the Armenian goddess Anahit. Lâtife Summerer argues that its discovery in northeastern Anatolia "supports its interpretation as Anaïtis." Timothy Bruce Mitford argues that the statue was looted from the sanctuary of Anaitis at Eriza, but C. S. Lightfoot rejects this view as baseless. Robert H. Hewsen posited that it is "an obviously Hellenistic work" that is "surely not to be identified with any Armenian deity." Terence Mitford suggests that an identification as Anaitis (Anahita) is "wholly implausible".
Satala was also, for centuries, the base of Roman legions, including Legio XV Apollinaris and Legio XVI Flavia Firma. Zhores Khachatryan stated that "the Armenian origin of the statue still has to be proven". He believed that "it is more possible that it may be the statue of a Roman pagan goddess" as it was found near the site of a Roman camp inhabited during the time period of its assumed creation. Russell argued that Satala "appears to have been sufficiently important in ancient times to have been a religious centre, although there is nothing to suggest that the shrine was Armenian, or Zoroastrian" and suggested that it was a "Roman military shrine."
Reception in the West
The head has been widely admired in the West since its discovery. In a 1873 letter to Prime Minister Gladstone, Charles Thomas Newton wrote that the head is "the finest example of Greek work in metal" he had seen. He added that it is "the work which in beauty of conception and mastery of execution has most claim to rank next to the marbles of the Parthenon." In a Times article, Newton wrote that the first impression produced by the head is that of "majestic godlike beauty."The Times, 10 April 1873, and reprinted as ‘The bronze head of Castellani’, in C. T. Newton, Essays on Art and Archaeology (London, 1880), pp. 400–4. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine described it as a "unique example of a Greek bronze sculptured in a large commanding style [...] executed with all the feeling and skill which belongs to Greek art." Philip Gilbert Hamerton wrote that the head depicts a "simple and beautiful antique way of dressing the hair which was so suitable for plastic representation." Arthur Frothingham described the bronze head as "one of the glories of the British Museum".
Sara Anderson Immerwahr called the bronze head "famous" and "lovely" that depicts "restless" and "ideal beauty." David Marshall Lang described it as "singularly fine", while James R. Russell called it a piece of "very fine workmanship." Lucilla Burn, former Curator in the Greek and Roman department at the British Museum, wrote that the "exceptional quality of the surviving elements" suggest that the statue "must have formed a highly impressive figure."
The head appears on the cover of The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World (2002) This book reproduces the text of The Oxford History of the Classical World: Greece and the Hellenistic World (1988, ) and in the title sequence of the 2017 film Call Me by Your Name. stills: ,
Reception in Armenia