[German version]

From the Renaissance, the word bust (from Italian busto) refers to a three-dimensional free-standing human image, which is restricted to head and chest ( Portrait). There is no ancient technical term, because busts were predominantly classified as portraits (imagines). The term  bustum, on the other hand, meant gravesite, which in Italic cultures was marked by a  cippus or a stele, contouring a human head; in some instances as early as the 6th cent., but more commonly by the 4th and 3rd cents. BC, these developed into rudimentary colu…