Comic theatre mask, Inv. T I-19 „leading slave“

Description: Above the high forehead is a roll of hair, the speira[1], which continues in longitudinally streaked hair bundles that increase in volume towards the bottom. The short, protruding beard forms a funnel around the wide-open mouth with its thin, plastic lips. While the upper lip runs horizontally, the lower lip curves downwards.
The eyeballs bulge out hemispherically between the plastically indicated lids. A deep vertical furrow is carved above the sunken root of the nose between the raised, steeply rising eyebrows. The forehead wrinkles take up the oscillation of the brows with progressive attenuation.

Commentary: The speira is a feature of the "leading slave", Hegemon Therapon[2]. This is a male role in Attic New Comedy[3], whose protagonists were widely distributed throughout the Hellenic world in the form of terracotta statuettes. The Giessen mask T I-19 can be assigned to the type of the "leading slave". Comparable is, among others, a specimen in London[4], allegedly from Melos, decorated with a vegetal wreath. As the studies of Webster and Bieber revealed[5], representatives with a deep round bell around the open mouth still date to the 3rd century BC[6]. Then the shape of the funnel changes and gradually approaches a semicircle around 200 BC; beard strands are also indicated[7]. Another temporal stylistic criterion is the pupil bore, which, appropriately positioned, can create the impression of squinting[8]. Examples of this are provided, among others, by the finds from Priene, which are dated to the middle or 2nd half of the 2nd century BC[9]. As a result, the funnel formation of the beard weakens, as does the curve of the forehead wrinkles. The corners of the mouth taper, the hair is streaked crosswise and springs up so far that it protrudes from the cheeks[10].
The speira of the Giessen mask, on the other hand, shows a vertical streak that is limited to the lowest section of the hair bundles. The mouth and beard form rounded triangles with the tip pointing downwards. The hemispherical eyeballs are not pierced. T I-19 is therefore likely to be almost at the beginning of a development that spread through the Greek Koiné in the Hellenistic period[11] and continued into the Roman Imperial period[12]. Based on the colour of the clay, the piece could have been made in Attica.

Determination: Late 3rd century BC, Attic?