Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
Although currently mounted to serve as earrings, these pendants were produced separately, as evinced by their distinctly different metallurgic compositions and slightly varying shapes (1). Pendant B is also thicker and heavier than A. The modern date of their identical gold ear wires and copper alloy rosette-shaped fittings suggests that they were only recently united. Each earring is composed of a circular pendant with a round opening in the lower half. The resulting shape resembles a crescent, turned on its side.
A recessed tendril pattern, obscured by severe corrosion, decorates the obverse of pendant A. This ornament may imitate similar patterns found in enamel plaques set in comparably shaped gold pendants (2). The reverse of pendant A is undecorated. A small, solid tab protrudes from the bottom, and a small suspension loop projects from the top.
Both the front and back surfaces of pendant B are obscured by corrosion, and no decoration is visible. Like pendant A, pendant B has a tab protruding from the bottom, but the tab is pierced. A second hole is visible just above the circular opening. These piercings suggest that B may originally have had smaller pendants suspended within the circular opening and hung from the tab. A loop projects from the top of pendant B.
Comparably shaped, but more elaborately worked, crescent pendants in gold and enamel have been dated to the eleventh century and ascribed to both Fatimid Egyptian and Byzantine origins (3). A bronze crescent pendant that resembles the Harvard pendants but lacks the lower tab was excavated at Corinth and dated not later than the twelfth century (4). An undated bronze pendant from Egypt currently in the Awad Collection, Cairo, has a round opening like pendant B and is decorated with a relief design similar to pendant A (5).
NOTES:
1. The oval opening in the lower half of pendant A measures 1.4 by 1.8 cm; that of pendant B is round, with a diameter of 1.7 cm.
2. A pair of ninth- or tenth-century Byzantine copper alloy earrings inlaid with enamel illustrates that base metal jewelry mimicked the technique of gold types. Compare L. Wamser and G. Zahlhaas, Rom und Byzanz: Archäologische Kostbarkeiten aus Bayern (Munich, 1998) 177-78, no. 236.
3. It is possible that the Harvard pendants are Islamic as well. Compare M. C. Ross, Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early Mediaeval Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection 2: Jewelry, Enamels, and Art of the Migration Period (Washington, DC, 1965) 114, no. 163, pl. 77; J. W. Nesbitt, Byzantium: The Light in the Age of Darkness, exh. cat., Ariadne Galleries (New York, 1989) 36 and 59, no. 48, for a pendant previously identified as eleventh-century Byzantine but now identified as eleventh-century Fatimid and currently in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada (inv. no. 994.220.44); M. Jenkins and M. Keene, Islamic Jewelry in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1983) 80-81 and 83, nos. 47 and 49a; R. Hasson, Early Islamic Jewelry (Jerusalem, 1987) 61 and 84, no. 111, fig. 51; H. C. Evans and W. D. Wixom. The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843-1261, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1997) 420, no. 278; and D. Evgenidou and J. Albani, eds., Byzantium: An Oecumenical Empire, exh. cat., Byzantine and Christian Museum (Athens, 2002) 291, no. 157.
4. See G. R. Davidson, Corinth 12: Minor Objects (Princeton, 1952) 261, no. 2117, pl. 111. The Corinth piece is broken, but the crescent appears originally to have formed a complete circle. See also R. M. Harrison, Excavations at Saraçhane in Istanbul 1: The Excavations, Structures, Architectural Decoration, Small Finds, Coins, Bones, and Molluscs (Princeton, 1986) no. 619, pl. 419 for a crescent-shaped bronze pendant dated to the mid-twelfth century from excavations at the Church of Hagios Polyeuktos, Istanbul.
5. J. L. Bacharach, ed., Fustat Finds: Beads, Coins, Medical Instruments, Textiles, and Other Artifacts from the Awad Collection (Cairo, 2002) 199, figs. 8 and 18.
Jennifer Floyd and Alicia Walker
