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Identification and Creation

Object Number
2012.1.11
Title
Weight
Classification
Tools and Equipment
Work Type
weight
Date
1st-5th century CE
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World
Period
Roman Imperial period
Culture
Roman?
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/178628

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Copper alloy
Technique
Cast, lost-wax process
Dimensions
1.8 x 2.9 cm, 79.92 g (11/16 x 1 1/8 in.)
Technical Details

Technical Observations: The patina is green with areas of red. There are crusty brown and black burial accretions. Burial accretions were partially removed, but otherwise the weight appears rough and uncleaned.

The weight is a solid cast, but there is no indication whether a direct or indirect technique was used to make the wax model. The surfaces and overall shape are very regular, perhaps pointing to the use of a mold, which would also have been a means of making multiple, identical weights. There are three gray and black denomination marks on one of the two flat surfaces. These are presumably inlays of a secondary metal, such as lead.


Henry Lie (submitted 2012)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Walton Brooks McDaniel, New Jersey (?-1943/46), gift; to the Department of the Classics, Harvard University (1943/46-2012), transfer; to the Harvard Art Museums, 2012.

Note: Walton Brooks McDaniel gave a portion of his collection to the Department of the Classics in 1943 and the rest in 1946. The Collection is named for his late wife, Alice Corinne McDaniel.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Transfer from the Alice Corinne McDaniel Collection, Department of the Classics, Harvard University
Accession Year
2012
Object Number
2012.1.11
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This weight is spherical and flattened at the top and the bottom. There is a slight ridge around the diameter. There are three circular holes drilled in a triangle into one flattened side.

The weight would have been used to balance a scale, and the dots indicate the mass of the weight (1).

NOTES:

1. Compare weights of the same general shape in M. Garsson, ed., Une histoire d’alliage: Les bronzes antiques des réserves du Musée d’archéologie méditerranéenne, exh. cat. (Marseille, 2004) 38, no. 46.

Lisa M. Anderson

Publication History

  • John Crawford, Sidney Goldstein, George M. A. Hanfmann, John Kroll, Judith Lerner, Miranda Marvin, Charlotte Moore, and Duane Roller, Objects of Ancient Daily Life. A Catalogue of the Alice Corinne McDaniel Collection Belonging to the Department of the Classics, Harvard University, ed. Jane Waldbaum, Department of the Classics (unpublished manuscript, 1970), M137, p. 192 [J. S. Crawford]

Subjects and Contexts

  • Ancient Bronzes

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu