The Meroë Head of Augustus

In 27 BC, somewhere in Roman Egypt, a bronze statue of the emperor Augustus was erected. It would have stood in a public space, perhaps a forum or a temple precinct, larger than life and visible from a distance. The head alone is nearly half a metre tall, so the full figure was probably three metres or more. It was expensive work: the bronze was cast and finished to a high standard, the hair carefully modelled, the eyes inlaid with calcite and glass. It looked like Augustus, but better — the smooth skin, the regular features, the calm expression. This was not a portrait of a man. It was a portrait of authority made visible.

Three years later, in 24 BC, the statue was no longer standing. Queen Amanirenas of Kush had led a raid into Roman Egypt, sacking the southern frontier towns of Aswan, Philae, and Elephantine. Roman sources describe the campaign as retaliation for Roman incursions into Kushite territory, though the details are murky and the accounts are Roman. What is certain is that the Kushite forces took prisoners, looted temples, and toppled statues. The head of Augustus was among the spoils.

It was carried south, up the Nile, past the cataracts, deep into Kushite territory, and brought to Meroë, the royal city. And then it was buried. Not hidden, not stored, not melted down. It was placed deliberately beneath the threshold of a temple, face-up, so that everyone entering the temple would step on the emperor's face. The location was not random. Thresholds are liminal spaces, places of transition and symbolic weight in many cultures. To bury an enemy ruler's image there was to make a statement every time the temple was used: Rome is beneath us.

The head stayed there for nearly two thousand years. The temple eventually collapsed or was dismantled, and the site was abandoned. By the time European archaeologists arrived in the early twentieth century, Meroë was a field of ruined pyramids and eroded brick. In 1910, the British archaeologist John Garstang excavated the remains of a temple and found the head under what had been the steps. It was still face-up. The bronze had corroded to a dark green patina, but the features were intact, the eyes still in place, the expression still calm.

Garstang shipped the head to the British Museum in 1911, where it has remained. The museum's acquisition was straightforward by the standards of the time: Garstang had a permit from the Sudanese government, then under British administration, and the find was divided according to the terms of the excavation. But those terms were set by a colonial authority, not by Sudan, and the head is now one of several objects from the site whose long-term location is a matter of discussion.