Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This pendant is shaped like a jug (1). The rim of the triangular mouth, which surrounds a cylindrical hole into the interior, is wide. The handle joins the rim and body at the shoulder, forming a suspension loop. The shape of the body is asymmetrical. The vessel has a knob for a foot and would not be able to stand on its own, if it were real. On the side where it joins the handle, the body is smoother and flatter than the rest of object.
While this pendant was probably decorative, it has been suggested that it might have been used as a votive, toy, or weight (2). The type was wide-spread in Europe.
NOTES:
1. Compare a set of similar pendants from the Campana collection, now in the Louvre, inv. no. Br 2290; S. Tassinari, La vaisselle de bronze romaine et provinciale au Musée des Antiquités Nationales (Gallia Suppl. 39, 1975) 62, no. 157, pl. 30 (found at Bavay, presently in the Musée de Cluny, inv. no. Cluny 7779); M. Bolla and G. P. Tabone, Bronzistica figurata preromana e romana del Civico Museo Archeologico “Giovio” di Como (Como, 1996) 182-83, no. A 155; and F. Jurgeit, Die etruskischen und italischen Bronzen sowie Gegenstände aus Eisen, Blei, und Leder im Badischen Landesmuseum Karlsruhe, Terra Italia 5 (Pisa, 1999) 638-39, nos. 1123-25, pl. 289.
2. J. Petit, Bronzes Antiques de la Collection Dutuit: Grecs, hellénistiques, romains et de l’Antiquité tardive (Paris, 1980) 180-81, no. 98, consisting of nine small bronze jugs of this general style.
Lisa M. Anderson
