Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This nude human male sits directly on the ground. The right arm and lower part of the right leg are missing. The surface is heavily corroded in some areas. The head is oblong and smooth, with no facial features or ears visible. It sits on a short neck above a long torso and rounded upper back. The left arm is slightly bent and descends to grasp the ankle of the backward bent left leg. The penis is rendered as a short protruding knob. The left leg extends forward and then bends backward at the knee to the left side. The fingers of the left hand and toes of the left foot are visible.
The chest is flat, while the abdomen is slightly rounded. The trunk is slightly inclined. The neck extends even further forward, and the raised head faces forward. The position of the thigh of the right leg suggests that the leg was extended forward and bent upward slightly, with the foot placed flat. The position of the missing right arm cannot be restored with certainty.
While the seated posture, bent torso, and leg placed in front of this figure recall the “helmet maker” type of seated figurine (1), the Harvard figurine differs in several ways. “Helmet makers” are bearded and usually belted, use their feet to secure a platform or anvil in front of them, and hold a tool in one hand and the object being worked in the other. The Harvard figurine is smooth and beltless (2) and is not engaged in any kind of craft activity. Therefore, it appears to be an unusual variant of the squatting or seated man type of statuette in the repertoire of Greek Geometric bronze statuettes.
NOTES:
1. These statuettes date from the Late Geometric to the Archaic period, with well-known examples in Belgrade, Copenhagen, and New York. For the Belgrade example, see L. B. Popović, Antička bronza u Jugoslaviji (=Greek, Roman and Early Christian Bronzes in Yugoslavia) Narodni Musej (Belgrade, 1969) 15 and 66, no. 19; and id., Arhajska grčka kultur na srednjem Balkanu (=Archaic Greek Culture in the Middle Balkans) Narodni Musej (Belgrade, 1975) 77-84 [English text], pl. 1. For the Copenhagen example, see F. Johansen, “Graeske geometriske bronzer,” Meddelelser fra Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek 38 (1982): 73-98, esp. 77-78, figs. 5.a-c; and J. Christiansen, Greece in the Geometric Period, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Copenhagen, 1992) 54-55, no. 19 (inv. no. 3360). For the New York example, see G. M. A. Richter, “Five Bronzes Recently Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum,” American Journal of Archaeology 48 (1944): 1-9, esp. 1 and 5, figs. 1-4; and id., Handbook of the Greek Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1953) 22, no. 13H.
2. On the belt as a sign of male status and maturity in Geometric period Greece, see M. Bennett, The Belted Hero in Early Greece (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1994); and id., Belted Heroes and Bound Women: The Myth of the Homeric Warrior-King (Lanham, 1997).
Tamsey K. Andrews and David G. Mitten
