“Lacking Heads, Sculptures Keep Experts on Their Toes”, a front page article by Graham Bowley in the June 14, 2023 issue of The New York Times focuses on the bronze head of Septimus Severus in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Denmark) and the bronze body formerly in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and recently returned to Turkey. In the 1970s, the Glyptotek made the case that the head and body were from the same sculpture and exhibited them together in 1979. Now Turkey is asking that the head be returned to it .The museum is saying that the case for the association of head and body was a weak one and more research must be carried out. Bowley provides historical reasons why there are so many headless bodies and bodiless heads in musuems, and discusses the results of a 1975 spectral analysis of samples from the MET and Glyptotek sculptures. The Glyptotek’s reluctance to return a likely looted sculpture has provided an opportunity for the public to learn about how fragments of sculptures are proved to be matches.
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