Ceiling Tile with Heliodoros in the Yale University Art Gallery, October 2013

Ceiling Tile with Heliodoros, an Actuarius
ca. A.D. 200–256

Clay with painted plaster

30.5 × 44 × 6.7 cm (12 × 17 5/16 × 2 5/8 in.)

Yale-French Excavations at Dura-Europos

1933.292

This tile from the ceiling of a house bears a Greek inscription that identifies the bearded man by name, Heliodoros, and occupation, actuarius (an official responsible for distribution of wages in the Roman military). The use of Greek to identify a Roman official is typical of the multicultural environment at Dura-Europos. The style and technique of the figure—the frontal pose, large eyes, subtle shading, and earth-toned pigments—recall other painted decoration in the city’s buildings.

Culture: Syrian, Dura-Europos

Period: Roman (3rd century A.D.)

Classification: Paintings

Provenance: Excavated by the Yale-French Excavations at Dura-Europos (block L7 A31, House of the Scribes), present-day Syria, 1928–37; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.

Bibliography:

Michael I. Rostovtzeff, Dura-Europos and Its Art, 1st (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938), 83, pl. 15:1, ill.

Alan Shestack, ed., Yale University Art Gallery Selections (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1983), 18–19, ill.

Handbook of the Collections, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 271, ill.

Susan B. Matheson, Art for Yale: A History of the Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2001), 114, fig. 111.

Simon T. James, The Excavations at Dura-Europos,1928 to 1937: Final Report VII, 7 (London: The British Museum Press, 2004), xxvi, 40, pl. 3.

Lisa R. Brody and Gail Hoffman, eds., Dura-Europos: Crossroads of Antiquity (Boston: McMullen Museum of Art, 2011), 356, no. 49, pl. 49, ill. cover.

Jennifer Chi and Sebastian Heath, eds., Edge of Empires: Pagans, Jews, and Christians at Roman Dura-Europos, exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 2011), 50, no. 15, fig. 2–14.

Text from: artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/5748