Three small finds from the north-eastern border of the Roman Empire which resemble Indian-style 'turban heads'

This study takes a closer look at three small finds from the Middle Roman period from the northern border of the Roman Empire. More precisely, they originate from the border area opposing settlements of Germanic-Suebian tribes. They were found in an area originally settled by Celtic tribes, then occupied by the Romans. The small finds, with their depictions of human heads, display a number of features that are atypical for Roman faces. Above all, the heads have a kind of special hairstyle that resembles turbans with their tower-like and puffy shape. Already in the 1990s I had noticed in photographs of books presenting these finds the 'turban hair' and the Indian-looking facial features of the people depicted. One aim of this study is to examine the extent to which there is evidence that the objects could represent a kind of mixture of Indian and Roman depictions of people from the 1st to 2nd centuries CE.