Marble Head of Zeus
The extremely fragmented state of the head documents the destructive vehemence of the Jewish revolt from AD 115-117. It was reassembled from more than a hundred fragments. There is an almost absolute correspondence of the great seated statue of Olympian Zeus, both in size and in the shape of the base on which he sat, between the temple of Cyrene and that of Olympia. It is, therefore, a replica of Pheidias' masterpiece, as seems to be confirmed by the inscription with which the architect Aurelius Rufus, to whom the restoration is perhaps to be attributed, recalls having fulfilled his vow to Zeus Olympius.
