Polos

{{short description|Headdress of certain ancient Greek female gods}}

{{about|the crown|the Balinese musical term|Kotekan|the confectionery|Polo (confectionery)|people with this name|Polus (disambiguation)|the singular|Polo (disambiguation)}}

File:Female head polos Louvre Br1.jpg

The polos crown (plural poloi; {{langx|el|πόλος}}) is a high cylindrical crown worn by mythological goddesses of the Ancient Near East and Anatolia and adopted by the ancient Greeks for imaging the mother goddesses Rhea, Cybele and Hera.[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry%3Dpo/los Liddell and Scott define πόλος as 'a head-dress worn by goddesses.']{{cite book|author1=Assaf Yasur-Landau|author2=Jennie R. Ebeling|author3=Laura B. Mazow|title=Household Archaeology in Ancient Israel and Beyond|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=298Gfyw5JhcC&pg=PA192|date=10 May 2011|publisher=BRILL|isbn=90-04-20625-6|pages=192–}}

The word also meant an axis or pivot and is cognate with the English, 'pole'. It was often open at the top with hair cascading down from the sides, or it could be reduced to a ring.[http://www.fjkluth.com/polos.html The Role of Women in the Art of Ancient Greece] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101005013803/http://www.fjkluth.com/polos.html |date=2010-10-05 }}

In the classical period, mortal women seem not to have worn poloi, but they are more commonly seen in terracotta statues of women from the Mycenaean period, thus the use in statues of goddesses can be seen as a deliberate archaism.

Some poloi seem to have been made by weaving, though it is not clear what material. None have been found in archaeological digs, suggesting that they were not made of metal.