Guildford Puteal

The Guilford Puteal is a Pentelic marble Ancient Roman sculpture. Its name derives from its use as a puteal or wellhead, and one of its previous owners, Frederick North, second Earl of Guilford. Its discovery in Corinth gives rise to an alternative modern name, the Corinth Puteal.

The puteal—wellhead is a cylindrical drum 50 cm by 106 cm and dates to circa 30-10 BC. It is part of a commemorative memorial in the city of ancient Corinth, which at that time had recently been refounded by Augustus's adoptive father Julius Caesar, that celebrated Augustus's victory at the battle of Actium. Work is ongoing to locate the likely original site of the monument from which it came, perhaps even with part of its missing moulding restored.

The wellhead is decorated in bas-relief, with ten figures of deities and heroes. At the front two small processions meet: on the left is Apollo with his lyre (Augustus's patron deity) who leads Artemis (trailing her stag) and another female figure, probably their mother Leto. Behind Leto, from left to right, is Hermes/Mercury (in winged sandals) leading three dancing women or nymphs. On the right is Athena/Minerva (another patron of Augustus, her arm extended to hold her helmet) leading Herakles/Hercules (with his club on his shoulder and a quiver beneath his arm, patron of Augustus's defeated enemy Mark Antony) and a veiled woman (Hera, Aphrodite or Heracles's bride Hebe). The figures were spaced wide apart, and were designed in the Neo Attic style, a Roman version of the archaic sixth century BC Greek style.

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