Nisa
Marble sculptures
The most famous of the sculptures brought to light by the JuTAKE is the co-called Rodogune, from the name of the Parthian heroine that Soviet archaeologists gave to this statue, which depicts Aphrodite Anadiomene, identified with the Iranian Anahita.
The strong influence of Hellenistic culture is also obvious in the other statues, Artemis the huntress, Dionysus leaning against a young satyr, another statue of Aphrodite, and the archaistic female figure attesting to how the artists that made it were aware of the various aesthetic trends in Hellenistic times. The depiction of figures and deities in exclusively Greek dress is not surprising in an extremely receptive cultural context such as that of Nisa, where the two styles (Greek and Iranian, side by side in a complex syncretism) are always present. The most recent Italian missions have also promoted the study, documentation and analysis of the marble sculptures from the Square House.
The statues, whose dimensions are usually one third of life size, originally decorated the citadel’s buildings. Analyses of the statues’ original pigmentation were performed during the 2005 campaign with the aid of an X-ray spectrophotometer. The study of the colours (plasters, statues), followed by archaeologists from the Centro di Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi di Torino, is still underway in the laboratories of the Valle d’Aosta’s Regional Board of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities.