Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
The fragment preserves a biconical bead and part of a square-sectioned pin shaft. A narrow ring molding surrounds the shaft just below the bead; further decorative details cannot be discerned due to heavy corrosion. As this object was given to the collection by one of the excavators of the Argive Heraeum, it seems likely that it was indeed found in the environs of Argos (1).
Pins of the Geometric period are well known from finds in graves and sanctuaries, especially those of female deities. They consist of a disc head with finial, a shaft that may be partly square in section and often bears incised decoration, and one or more globes or biconical beads on the upper part of the shaft. The beads may be framed by simple or multiple ring moldings. Because of its size, 1947.33.4 would have been classified as a “spit” rather than a “pin” by the excavators of the Heraeum. From a typological point of view, however, such objects are pins, albeit too large and heavy for actual use on a dress. Dedicated in sanctuaries and placed in graves, their display value as objects containing a substantial amount of metal outweighed practical considerations (2). It has even been suggested that the pins of the Geometric period may have been a primitive type of currency, like heavy rings such as 1895.202.A, 1895.202.C, 1920.44.219, and 1977.216.2123.13 (3).
NOTES:
1. Compare H. F. de Cou, “The Bronzes of the Argive Heraeum,” in The Argive Heraeum 2, ed. C. Waldstein (Boston, 1905) 191-332, esp. 237-39 and 314-16, nos. 753, 756, 765, 789, 2564, 2580a, and 2587, pls. 84 and 130-31; and I. Kilian-Dirlmeier, Nadeln der frühhelladischen bis archaischen Zeit von der Peloponnes, Prähistorische Bronzefunde 13.8 (Munich, 1984) 90-113 and 117-19; types I B-D, II B-E; and III A, pls. 14-35 and 40-43.
2. Kilian-Dirlmeier 1984 (supra 1) 162.
3. C. Waldstein, ed., The Argive Heraeum 1 (Boston, 1902) 61-62.
Susanne Ebbinghaus
