What is a word that refers to the state of appearing only as a head without a body, as in the case of an apparition or God

I am looking for a word that refers to the state of appearing as only a head without a body, as in the case of an apparition or god. I think the word would be used in a sentence something like this: "The goddess Athena appeared [blank] to him and foretold his future."

I know I have run into the word in use before and had to look it up. But I have forgotten what the word is. I am pretty sure that I found the word on Dictionary.com. To my best recollection, it is a foreign-sounding word, most likely Latin[ish].

Solution 1:

You are looking for disembodied

Cambridge

seeming to not have a body or not to be connected to a body

In the sense you want it,

The goddess Athena's disembodied head appeared to him and foretold his future.

or a little more subtly:

Disembodied, the goddess Athena appeared to him and foretold his future.

If you're looking for a pithy Latin phrase, you could try tantum in capite, which simply means "only a head".

Solution 2:

Perhaps the Raw Head component of "raw head and bloody bones" is what you're looking for. The OED defines it as follows, with citations from 1564:

1. Frequently in form Raw-head. A bugbear or bogeyman, typically imagined as having a head in the form of a skull, or one whose flesh has been stripped of its skin, invoked to frighten children. Also occasionally: a skull. Frequently used in conjunction with bloody-bones (see Bloody Bones n.). Cf. raw-flesh n., raw neck n.

It's also discussed in the Wiki article on Bloody Bones .