A Figured Terracotta Incense Burner from the Southern Necropolis of Parion: Digital Documentation, Classification, and Iconographic Limits

This study examines a figured terracotta object with an upper receptacle recovered from a child burial (Grave ATM 1) in the Southern Necropolis of Parion, dated to the late first century BCE–early first century CE on the basis of associated grave goods, including an Augustan bronze coin. The object was documented through controlled photogrammetry, colour-calibrated imaging, axial mirroring, and targeted pigment visualization. These procedures improved the legibility of the preserved surface and allowed missing volumes to be presented transparently as hypothesis surfaces, without treating reconstructed areas as equivalent to extant material. On the basis of its hollow body, upper receptacle, and rear and lateral openings, the object can plausibly be discussed as a figured terracotta incense burner and, if a narrower typological label is required, as a probable thymiaterion, although the exact subtype remains open. The iconographic evidence is less secure. The preserved front clearly carries a female-coded figural image, but the damaged state of the face and the ambiguity of several surface features do not permit a secure divine identification. Comparisons with Pontic bust thymiateria and related figured incense-burners help define the range of possibilities, yet they do not justify a closed attribution to a single goddess. The grave context shows that the object formed part of a deliberate funerary assemblage, but it does not determine either its original use history or its cultic identity. The study therefore offers both a transparent digital documentation protocol and a controlled framework for discussing the classification and iconographic limits of a fragmentary figured terracotta from a funerary context.