This inscribed funerary altar shows the deceased, Cominia Tyche, with a mass of tight curls piled high atop her head, a coiffure typical of female portrait sculpture during the Flavian dynasty. Popularized by the empresses who, like their male counterparts, were trendsetters of certain hairstyles and whose portraits were widely visible in public spaces and on imperial coinage (99.35.218), these elaborate coiffures were imitated by aristocrats and freedwomen alike, and help scholars to date otherwise unidentifiable portraits. The acutely drilled centers of the curls provide a strong contrast of light and dark in imitation of the effects of painting, and the deeply rooted realism of the period is evident in the sensitively rendered facial features of the deceased.

Successful execution of these complex coiffures required a highly skilled hand at using the drill, and the style marks an increased artistic interest in the interplay between the varying textures of the human head. The contrast between the surfaces of curly hair and smooth skin was further explored in later decades, and saw its most virtuoso realization in the Hadrianic and Antonine portraits (33.11.3) of the second century A.D.

A jug and patera (libation dish) on the sides of the monument allude to the common practice in antiquity of pouring liquids as an act of commemoration.

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