Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This thin-walled bell is hemispherical, and its walls are decorated with a floral wreath. Inside hangs a large iron clapper of square section with a pointed end, which appears too heavy for the fragile walls. It is suspended by a bronze wire that runs through a hole in its flattened top. The ends of the handle protrude through a hole in the bell’s top and then curl around the thin, bow-shaped handle. The terminals of the handle (only one is preserved) are flattened lozenge shapes and were once fastened to the bell’s top.
Thin-walled hemispherical bells are known at least from the Classical Greek period onwards (1). Unusual are the bell’s decoration, handle, and method of attaching the clapper-wire. Otherwise, thin-walled bells of hemispherical shape more frequently feature a handle consisting of a loop twisted from the same wire that also holds the clapper (2). Rare examples of the clapper-wire being tied to a handle occur on bells of different types (3). Elaborate decoration on bells is generally rare, too; representations of gods are known on Babylonian and Egyptian bells, while heroes, battles, bound enemies, and gladiators appear on Roman and Meroitic bells. Concentric circles occasionally decorate thin-walled, hemispherical Roman bells, and zigzag patterns also appear, but floral designs such as ivy leaves seem to be confined to painted Greek terracotta bells (4).
Bells (Greek: kodon; Latin: tintinnabulum) have been used by many cultures since antiquity, including in the first millennium BCE Near East and the Greek and Roman world (5). Usually made of cast copper alloy with an iron clapper, there are also examples in silver and gold (Persian, Greek, Roman, and Egyptian), iron (Roman), terracotta (Greek, Babylonian, and Egyptian), or faience (Egyptian); the latter was probably mostly symbolic rather than functional. For modern copper alloy bells, a ratio of c. 78% copper and 22% tin is considered ideal, but ancient bells usually contain less tin and more lead (6). Ancient bells functioned as signal instruments, but their sound could also have symbolic meaning. Roman bells are attested as announcing the opening of markets and baths and the spraying of streets with water; they awakened and summoned slaves, were worn by horses and other animals, functioned as apotropaic and fertility-related amulets, and played a role in Dionysiac cults especially (7).
NOTES:
1. A. Villing, “For Whom Did the Bell Toll in Ancient Greece? Archaic and Classical Greek Bells at Sparta and Beyond,” Annual of the British School at Athens 97 (2002): 223-95, esp. 254-56.
2. See, for example, L. Woolley, “The Excavations at Al Mina, Sueidia. II,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 58.2 (1938): 133-70, esp. 147 and 166, no. MNN.34, fig. 25; W. Nowakowski, “Metallglocken aus der römischen Kaiserzeit im europäischen Barbarikum,” Archaeologia Polona 27 (1988): 69-146, esp. 88, fig. 12; and N. Spear, jr., A Treasury of Archaeological Bells (New York, 1978) 143, fig. 156.
3. For example, see a Roman bell from Padua in G. Zampieri and B. Lavarone, eds., Bronzi antichi del Museo Archaeologico di Padova, exh. cat., Museo Archeologico Padova (Rome, 2000) 195, no. 382a; for a Cypriot bell dated between the Archaic and Roman periods, see M.-J. Chavane, La nécropole d’Amathonte tombes 110-385, Vol. 4: Les petits objets, Etudes chypriotes 12 (Nicosia, 1990) 46, no. 382, pls. 12 and 22.
4. For concentric circles, see Nowakowski 1988 (supra 2) 81-82, figs. 14, 20, and 26; for a zigzag pattern, see Pergamon: Eine Ausstellung in Erinnerung an Erich Boehringer (Berlin, 1972) no. 94; for figurative decoration, see the references in Villing 2002 (supra 1) 245 n.1. For terracotta bells, see, for example, B. A. Sparkes and L. Talcott, Black and Plain Pottery, The Athenian Agora 12 (Princeton, 1970) 184, no. 1366, pl. 44; K. Braun and T. E. Havernick, Bemalte Keramik und Glas aus dem Kabirenheiligtum bei Theben, Das Kabirenheiligtum bei Theben 4 (Berlin, 1981) 61, no. 283a, pl. 19.9. Compare also Hellenistic bells with kymata in relief, for example, J. Schäfer, Hellenistische Keramik aus Pergamon, Pergamenische Forschungen 2 (Berlin, 1968) 107, fig. 9.1 (erroneously identified as a lid).
5. On the history of ancient bells and their uses, see Villing 2002 (supra 1); M. Trumpf-Lyritzaki, “Glocke,” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 11 (Stuttgart, 1981) 164-96; Spear 1978 (supra 2); M. Schatkin, “Idiophones of the Ancient World,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 21 (1978): 147-72; and P. Calmeyer, “Glocke,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie 3 (Berlin, 1969) 427-31.
6. For comparative analyses, see H. Drescher, “Rekonstruktionen und Versuche zu frühen Zimbeln und kleinen antiken Glocken,” Saalburg-Jahrbuch 49 (1998): 155-70; K. Bakay, Scythian Rattles in the Carpathian Basin and their Eastern Connections (Budapest, 1971) 93-96; and J. Riederer, “Die Bedeutung der Metallanalyse für die Archäologie,” in Antidoron: Festschrift für Jürgen Thimme (Karlsruhe, 1983) 159-64, esp. 160.
7. See references supra 5, as well as A. Villing, “Glocke,” Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum 5 (Los Angeles, 2005) 379-81; A. R. Furger and C. Schneider, “Die Bronzeglocke aus der Exedra des Tempelareals Sichelen 1,” Jahresberichte aus Augst und Kaiseraugst 14 (1993): 159-72, esp. 166-71; W. Nowakowski, “Metallglocken aus der römischen Kaiserzeit im europäischen Barbarikum,” Archaeologia Polona 27 (1988): 69-146, esp. 82-83 and 133-34; and V. Galliazzo, Bronzi romani del Museo civico di Treviso (Rome, 1979) 156-58.
Alexandra C. Villing
