Head Attributed to Ptolemy II

Ptolemy II ruled Egypt from 284 to 246 BC, first beside his father and then alone, and he reigned before two audiences at once. In Alexandria he was a Greek king, with Greek court poets and a city where the Museum and the great Library were growing. In the temples along the Nile he was a pharaoh, carved in the old forms. Under him or his father, an Egyptian priest named Manetho wrote the history of his country in Greek for the new rulers, and Manetho's division of the kings into dynasties is still the one in use, on the labels of this museum as well.

This small head belongs to the Egyptian side of that double life. It comes from a statue in greywacke, a hard, dark stone, and wears the striped royal headcloth called the nemes, with the cobra on the brow. The museum dates it to his reign and calls it attributed to Ptolemy II, a careful word for a head that has lost its body. Where it was found is not recorded, and it was already in Turin before 1882.