Ancient object
Head of Marcus Aurelius
Marble portrait head
Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, Heraklion, Crete
Object provenance
Record incomplete- Object
- Marble portrait head
- Made
- Evidence level: Probable2nd century CE
- Found
- Evidence level: ProbableCrete
- Excavated
- Not recorded in this catalogue
- Inventory
- Not recorded in this catalogue
- Identification
- Evidence level: ProbableMarcus Aurelius
Imperial portraiture was distributed as official types across the provinces, which makes the subject securely identifiable from the type even where the object's own history is unrecorded.
Not recorded here
- Precise findspot
- Excavation date and excavator
- Inventory number
- Dimensions
Read across
How to read the evidence labels
- Evidence level: Documented
- Supported by a named primary text or by excavated material evidence.
- Evidence level: Probable
- Supported by strong inference that most specialists accept.
- Evidence level: Disputed
- Substantial specialist disagreement exists; competing readings are stated.
- Evidence level: Literary
- Belongs to poetic or mythological construction rather than to history.
- Evidence level: Mythological
- Belongs to shared religious or mythic tradition rather than to any single text.
- Evidence level: Unknown
- The available evidence is insufficient to decide.
These labels describe the status of the evidence, not our confidence in a conclusion. A claim marked Literary is not a claim we doubt; it is a claim about what kind of thing a poem is.