Engraved gem with the head of Athena

Description

A small engraved gem of translucent orange-red stone with the **head of the goddess Athena in profile**, facing left and wearing a helmet. The image is **cut into the stone** (intaglio): pressed into wax or clay, the gem leaves a raised image facing right. Gems of this kind were usually set in rings and served as personal seals, ornaments or amulets.

The gem was found during archaeological research in the Old Town, **near the preserved ancient wall** on the citadel, in the same area as fragments of Illyrian and imported Hellenistic pottery. [1] It is kept in the Museum in Ulcinj. The kind of stone, its dimensions and the year of discovery have not been published.

## Date

The sources disagree. The Lexicon of Archaeology of Montenegro dates the gem to the **4th–3rd century BC** in its entry on Ulcinj and to the 3rd century BC in the photo caption; the Lexicon of Fine Arts of Montenegro mentions “a gem from the 5th century”. [2] The range from the archaeological entry is given here as the most direct description of the find.

## A gem, not a cameo

Pavle Mijović's 1985 guide calls it an **ancient cameo**. [3] A cameo, however, is a relief standing out of the stone; here the image is cut in, so the correct term is **gem** (intaglio), as the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts calls it.

## The 3D model

The gem was not recorded for this project. The model was made **from a single published photograph** (© CANU, Lexicon of Archaeology of Montenegro): outline and colour come from the photograph, and the cuts of the image were estimated from the brightness of the engraved surfaces. The depth of the cuts, the curvature and the thickness of the stone are estimates, and **the true size has not been published**, so the model is not to scale. From the back the image shows through mirrored, as through translucent stone.