Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 102-103. (Budapest, 2005)

MARIANNA DÁGI - MÁRIA TÓTH: A Small Portrait Head of Augustus: Archeometrical Investigations

to the Romans at the time the piece was made, i.e. around the birth of Christ. It cannot be determined either whether the portrait was made at the same place where the sulphur was mined. Despite its worn surface, the high artistic quality of the head implies that it was made in an important centre of artistic production.

17 In any case, H. R. Goette's suggestions (Rome or Alexandria)

18 are confirmed by the fact that both Rome and Egypt were important marketplaces for sulphur.

19 The surprising outcome of the scientific examination of the Budapest portrait head will hopefully inspire a much more thorough investigation of objects made of unidentified materials held in the storerooms of museums. Such work could prove of considerable help in understanding the use of sulphur as an independent material in art, thus far a unique phenomenon. Marianna Dági is curator at the Department of Classical Antiquities, Museom of Fine Arts, Budapest. Mária Tóth is senior researcher of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences'

1 Institute for Geochemical Research. AUTHORS' NOTE: Scientific investigations were carried out with the financial support of the National Scientific Research Foundation (OTKA), as project no. T 32434. We are very grateful to Árpád Miklós Nagy for his help in interpreting the written sources, and for the consultations which inspired our work. The authors would also like to express their gratitude to Géza Nagy, researcher at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Institute for Geochemical Research, who performed the electron microprobe tests. NOTES: 1 Inv. no. 98.3.

A, height 4.2 cm, from the collection of Gyula Pók; see H. R. Goette, "Beobachtungen an kaiserzeitlichen Skulpturen in der Antikensammlung," Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 95 (2001), 45-49. 2 On faïence, see V. Webb, Archaic Greek Faience, Warminster 1978, 1-10; D. A. Stocks, "Derivation of ancient Egyptian faience core and glaze materials," Antiquity 71 (1997), 179-82; R T. Nicholson, "Materials and Technology," in Gifts of the Nile. Ancient Egyptian Faience, ed. F. D. Friedmann, Providence 1998, 50-64.