This enclosed earthenware head of Buddha Shakyamuni is said to have been recovered from the ruins of a brick temple on the edge of the Dieng Plateau in Central Java. The late 7th-8th century Hindu temples on the Dieng Plateau are the earliest extant Hindu temples in　Indonesia. While Dieng Plateau temples are almost exclusively built of andesite volcanic stone, archaeological findings have also identified the foundations of rare brick structures in the surrounding area.　 The LACMA Buddha head was likely originally set in a niche on the exterior of a temple wall. It features the standard iconographic conventions of a Buddha: a cranial protuberance (ushnisha) emblematic of his omniscience, snail-curl hair, elongated earlobes symbolizing his renunciation of the material world. His shorn hair and empty earlobes indicate his renunciation of his princely life when he wore long hair and heavy golden ear ornaments. The Buddha also has three rings (or folds) on his neck (trivali) that are among the beauty marks (lakshana) of a great being and symbolize the Three Trainings in Buddhism: Conduct (Shila), Concentration (Samadhi), and Wisdom (Prajña). There was probably no circular sacred marking (urna) on his forehead, but that area is now damaged so this is inconclusive. He is nimbate, has an unusually low ushnisha, and a decorative striated band between his forehead and hair (see an analogous band on M.73.54.4). Scrolling foliage fills the background behind the head. A comparable earthenware enclosed Buddha head from Central Java is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1983.509.2).