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This marble head of an Amazon, found at the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, dates to the middle of the first century A.D. and is one of the best Roman copies of a type of Amazon of the Classical period. The writings of the natural historian Pliny the Elder describe a competition between the foremost sculptors of the Classical Period in Greece (ca 430 B.C.). This sculpture is of an original type called the ‘Sciarra’, which is variously attributed to the sculptor Kresilas or to Polyclitus.

Amazons are famous figures of Greek mythology, and were a race of fierce women warriors. They are thought to have been the first to fight on horseback, thus inventing the cavalry. Famous amazons include the queen Hippolyte and her sister Antiope.