THE TIMELESS STYLE OF MACEDONIAN ELITE

The over-life-size head of a bearded man wearing a kausia, the Macedonian elite hat, and a padded headband was found in the sea near Kalymnos in 1997.

Depictions of ordinary Macedonians wearing kausias in Macedonian wall-paintings do not include headbands. Alexander the Great first introduced the wearinf of Kausia with a diadem made of fabric, and its ends falling down the back of the head. We can see this accessory described in ancient sources,as well as on coins issued by Bactrian Kings, such as Seleukos the 2nd and Antimachos I.

The Kalymnos head lacks the tails falling on the back- and it has been argued that the person was not a king.Yet, this bronze portrait is very similar to a marble head of the 2nd century BCE found in Kos, which wears a royal diadem. The resemblance of these two artifacts with the image of King Philip V of Macedon, as seen on his coins, gives a solid ground to the theory that they are portraits of him.

The bronze head was exquisitely crafted by an undoubtedly skilled artist . The man wears the standard kausia hat, reinforced with what seems as a headband made of wool.

A similar hat is depicted on the Weapons Frieze, of the propylon of the sanctuary of Athena at Pergamon , which dates from the reign of Eumenes II, probably from the 180s BCE.

 The same hat is worn by Seleukos II on his bronze coins minted at Susa in 228 BCE. Two more Bactrian kings are also seen wearing the kausia: Antimachos I ,on his coin portraits and Demetrios II, on a clay seal from Seleukeia on the Tigris.

Silver tetradrachm of Antimachos I of Bactria.

The kausia is mentioned by the historians of Alexander the Great as having been worn by Alexander and his companions. After his victorious campaign to Persia, Alexander introduced a new royal headdress by combining his Macedonian kausia with a Persian diadem,creating a kausia diadematophoros; an indication of royalty.This Macedonian royal hat was popular  until the time of Cleopatra VII of Egypt. In 34 BCE, she presented her infant Ptolemy, son of Antony, at a public ceremony known as the Donations of Alexandria, wearing a kausia with diadem.

After his return from the expedition to India, Alexander gave his friends purple kausias as royal gifts.Plutarch tells us that Alexander’s friend, Krateros, wore a kausia and the hat could still be seen worn at the court of  Philip V, who reigned from 221 to 179 BCE.

An earlier version of the kausia, closer to Alexander the Great’s own time, is seen in the wall-paintings of Macedonian tombs from the late 4th and early 3rd c. BCE. The famous hunting frieze on the Tomb of Philip at Vergina shows two Macedonians in kausias hunting with Alexander the Great. One of Alexander’s companions on the Alexander mosaic, a 2nd-century BCE copy of an early Hellenistic painting of the battle of Issos, wears a similar kausia.  

Alexander’s royal headgear was adopted by the Successors as a sign of royalty from 306 BCE and it continued to be a symbol of royalty until the end of the Hellenistic era.

As far as the bronze head of Calymnos is concerned, it does not wear a royal diadem of the sort described above. Questions arise as to whether he could be a King or simple one of the Kings entourage, who had the right to wear a kausia without the royal diadem.
Returning to the marble head of Kos, one cannot ignore the resemblance between the man depicted on marble and the model of the bronze head. The main difference is of course the royal diadem which is worn by the marble head-an unmistakable indication that he was a King of the Hellenistic era. 

  It has been suggested that the Kos head dates to the last quarter of the 3rd century, before the reign of Perseus, and that it might be Philip V of Macedon, Perseus’s father.Another 'candidate' is Antigonos Doson, King of Macedonia from 229 to 221; he was an uncle and predecessor of Philip V. Doson had his own ruler cult on Kos in a shrine called Antigoneion. There is yet no information about the location of the shrine, or how exactly Antigonos benefited the Koan people. The cult seems to have existed until the 2nd century BCE. Antigonos Doson did not include his portrait on his coins,therefore his image is still unknown to modern researchers. 

The coin portraits of Philip V also present a lot of similarities to the bronze head, with the shape of the face and the hairstyle being the most significant ones. Nevertheless, Philip the V and the island of Kos were not on friendly terms- a fact that would make the presence of his marble head on the island seem at least peculiar. His son,Perseus, did have a royal estate on Kos, however. In addition,  the shrine of Antigonos Doson may have been used as a repository of other royal Macedonian portraits. The Koans supported the Ptolemies quite strongly, yet they may have found themselves forced to appease Philip's anger. 

Silver tetradrachm of Philip V of Macedon.

In conclusion, the bronze head seems to depict a king of Macedonia from the late 3rd century BCE; and this King could very well be Philip.What makes this artifact even more valuable is that it is the only original over-life-size bronze portrait of a Macedonian king known to date; giving us a further insight into the rich artistic heritage of Macedonia.

Edited from : SOURCE