P34B
ACROLITO
This is a copy of the colossal head found in 1839 in the central area of the city, in proximity of the cathedral.
It is empty on the back and larger than the real. It constituted part of a religious statue – called acrolito – and
it was composed by different materials: the head and the hands in marble; a wooden body, clay or render.
The statue was entirely painted and dressed.
The head belonged to feminine deity statue (independent or sat down) inserted in a temple. The marble is
Greek and it goes back to the end of the II century BC.
The original one is preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Turin, bought and paid 1000£ by king Carlo
Alberto in 1840.
Inscriptions on marble slab
Alba, Risorgimento square (Duomo, 1839)
I-II centuries AC
The big and well-carved letters preserved refer to a monumental inscription.
Tracing of a funeral stele
Cortemilia, bed of the river Uzzone (1985)
I century AC
Quintus Valerius’stele who financed this monument when he was still alive. The shape and the
disproportionate measures of the letters suggest an execution done by a local artisan on a semicarved
stele and bought without epigraph.
Funeral sandstone stele
Cortemilia, Ponte Moschetto hamlet
First half I century AC
Stele of the citizen of Alba Lucius Naevius Montanus who financed his funeral monument when he
was alive. The cognomen Montanus indicates the fact that he lived out of the city. In the semicircular
part of the stele, the body of the deceased is represented, with the simplified and rough
traits that are typical of the local arts.