Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
The raised relief decoration on this medallion depicts the frontal bust of a youthful deity, perhaps a solar deity such as Helios, Sol, or one of their Near Eastern equivalents. The deity has a prominent crown of sharp rays above his short, curly locks. He wears a sleeveless garment, which is secured at the shoulders with circular fibulae. The facial features are very cursorily rendered, with simple eyes, nose, and an almost sullen mouth. Below the lowest ray on each side and above each shoulder is a triangle with rays surrounding the uppermost point. It is difficult to pinpoint what the rayed triangles are meant to represent. They could be the tips of a crescent moon appearing behind the shoulders of the deity, such as the Palmyrene lunar deity Aglibol, who is depicted with a radiate crown or nimbus and a crescent moon behind his shoulders (1). The triangle shapes might also reference triangular votive reliefs that often feature depictions of a sun and moon deity along with the Near Eastern sky god known to the Romans as Juppiter Dolichensus (2). The triangles might also be symbols of the Dioskouroi, Castor and Pollux, in this case referencing their pointed caps, the fact that their heads are often surmounted by stars (here represented as incised rays), and that they are also iconographically associated with Helios (3). They might also represent mountains. Medallions depicting a radiate male deity appear in a variety of contexts in ancient Near Eastern art, notably on signa or semeia (standards) (4).
The round, relief-decorated discs in this group (2001.179.1 through 2001.192, along with 2002.281) may not all have had the same use, and it is difficult to know what the exact function of each object was (5). Medallions of this type could have been used as matrixes to create thin, metal, particularly gold and silver, repoussé appliques as elements of decoration and jewelry, or they could have been used as decorative elements themselves (6). Some could have been decorative elements of furniture fittings (7). Others could have decorated horse harnesses or provided the matrix to create decoration for horse harnesses (8). Other potential uses are as decorative elements or models for decorative elements worn by individuals as part of jewelry or belt decorations, as seen in sculptural depictions (9). Some might have been devotional or votive objects in their own right (10).
NOTES:
1. See M. Le Glay, “Aglibol,” in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 1.1: 298-302. For a depiction of the Hatrene deity Barmaren with radiate crown and crescent behind his shoulders, although also with horns, see F. Safar and M. A. Mustafa, Hatra: The City of the Sun God (Baghdad, 1974) 114-15, no. 91 [in Arabic]. Other examples can be seen in R. Du Mesnil du Buisson, Les tessères et les monnaies de Palmyre: Un art, une culture et une philosophie grecs dans les moules d’une cité et d’une religion sémitiques (Paris, 1962) 212-13, fig. 142.1-2. Du Mesnil du Buisson suggests that the crescent in some cases may represent the sky rather than the moon; ibid.
2. LIMC Helios/Sol nos. 330-31 and 395. For other medallions of radiate deities connected to Heliopolitan deities, see also H. Seyrig, “Antiquités syriennes: Le culte du Soleil en Syrie a l’époque romaine,” Syria 48.3-4 (1971): 337-73, esp. “Médaillons du culte héliopolitain,” 367-70; and B. Soyez, “Médaillons de bronze dédiés au Mercure héliopolitain,” Latomus 34.3 (1975): 617-18.
3. See LIMC Dioskouroi/Castores nos. 92, 128, and 157; with the latter the Dioskouroi are represented only by caps surmounted by stars.
4. See, for example, Safar and Mustafa 1974 (supra 1) 176-77, 190-93, and 268-69, nos. 171, 183, and 283; for color representations of the first two, see M. Sommer, Hatra: Geschichte und Kultur einer Karawanenstadt im römisch-parthischen Mesopotamien (Mainz, 2003) 37 and 79, figs. 46 and 114.
5. Similar medallions are known in other museum collections, including a medallion with a bust of Aphrodite in the Princeton University Art Museum, inv. no. y605, said to be from Syria; a medallion with a bust of Artemis in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 74.51.5537, from Cyprus; a medallion with the bust of a woman flanked by a child in the British Museum, London, inv. no. 1975,0316.23. For bust medallions of various sizes (from 1.5 to 13 cm) and levels of relief, see E. Babelon and J.-A. Blanchet, Catalogue des bronzes antiques de la Bibliothéque Nationale (Paris, 1895) 12-13, 55, 65-66, 110, 132, 178, 193, 214, 264, 316-17, 359-60, 369, and 445; nos. 25, 28, 120, 143-44, 253, 301, 400, 434, 491, 622, 712, 715, 827, 844, and 1022.
6. See M. Y. Treister, Hammering Techniques in Greek and Roman Jewellery and Toreutics, Colloquia Pontica 8 (Leiden, 2001) esp. “The Galjûb Hoard,” 253-73, and “Bronze Matrices in the Museums of Athens and Karlsruhe,” 362-71.
7. There are many surviving examples of this type, often with an animal, often a leopard, placing one or both forepaws on top of the medallion. Compare various examples in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv. nos. 31630 and Fr. 1552 g 6-8; Babelon and Blanchet 1895 (supra 5) 474, no. 1133; and in the British Museum, London, inv. nos. 1856,1226.867 and 1872,1214.1.
8. See G. Greco, Bronzi dorati da Cartoceto: Un restauro, exh. cat., Museo Archaeologico, Florence (Florence, 1987) pls. 1-3 and 10-13. The horse heads had small round medallions decorated with busts in relief on the mouth, temples, and forehead of the harnesses. See also the gilt bronze horse head in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, inv. no. 54.759, which bears two medallions with busts, similar to this group in C. C. Mattusch, ed., The Fire of Hephaistos: Large Classical Bronzes from North American Collections, exh. cat., Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University; Toledo Museum of Art; Tampa Museum of Art (Cambridge, 1996) 216-19, no. 20.
9. See the representation of an Archigallus (high priest) of Cybele, wearing a wreath decorated by circular medallions with busts in LIMC Kybele no. 130. Marcus Caelius, a member of one of the three legions destroyed in the battle of the Teutoburger Forest in 9 CE, is represented in a cenotaph wearing various military awards, including phalerae in the form of medallions with heads, including one representing a gorgoneion, on his cuirass; see G. Webster, The Roman Imperial Army of the First and Second Centuries A.D., 3rd edn. (Norman, 1998) 132, pl. 6. For examples of relief bust medallions decorating belts, see Safar and Mustafa 1974 (supra 1) 62, 64, and 210-11, nos. 3, 5, and 198.
10. For example, 2001.189 and 2002.281; compare 1993.233.
Lisa M. Anderson
