Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/254

228 in the Museum of Taranto. I possess a cast of this, from which my sketch is taken. (I possess a portion of another plaque rather smaller but very similar in character.) This terra-cotta is apparently of the same age as the pre-affixes, although the style of the mask is totally different from them. It confirms, however, what has before been reiterated—that the two distinct types of countenance co-existed at least as early as the Tarentine period. The little twirls or volutes above the brow are noticeable and peculiar, but it is not easy to decide whether they are intended to indicate curls of hair like those on Fig. 7 or something else. The row of straight projections round the chin, after allowing for the difference in material between terra-cotta and sculptured marble, are analogous to the wavy objects shown upon the urn (Fig. 12). After careful comparison we see that, although some centuries different in age, and although one is Greek and the other Roman, we must consider this similar appendage in both to represent the same idea, whatever that may have been; I think it is meant for a beard, as much as in Fig. 13.

This plaque is of especial interest from the style of the ornament surrounding the central head. The border consists of a wreath of the well-known Anthemion and Acroterion alternately disposed. These latter, however, are much more distinctly shown upon another disc now at Taranto, of which also I possess a cast (Fig. 15).

I desire particularly to draw attention to the method by which in this very beautiful ancient pattern, still surviving as a modern ornament, the conventional figures in the design are connected by a scroll of the same kind both