Dataset of images of Roman imperial portraits (2018-2021)

Portraits of Roman emperors are traditionally recognized by their unique coiffure patterns- a method that runs the risk of ignoring portraits that do not cohere to the standardized image of the emperor. Our projects explores the use of data-augmented facial recognition software as a tool to provide an alternative approach to recognizing Roman imperial portraits. To do so, this dataset was generated, consisting of hundreds of photographs of sculptural portraits of Roman emperors from different sources, including personal photography, book scans, and web scrapes.