Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This massive armlet or anklet is solid cast, with marks of workmanship on the interior side, and it terminates in two upward-curving flat-ended stubs that are marked by circular punches. The exterior is carinated. The zones behind the upward-turned ends are marked by carefully incised lozenges, which alternate between plain and finely crosshatched. Next to this on both sides are square zones of concentric chevrons, the tips of which cross and form opposing triangles. The main zones of the bracelet consist of outer bands of alternating blank and crosshatched triangles. At either end of the main zone are clusters of large and small punched circles. Below this, the main zones are unadorned, except for three widely spaced punched circles.
This massive object belongs to a group of southern Balkan and northern Greek Iron Age bracelets dating to the eighth and early seventh centuries BCE (1). It is possible that these objects could also have served as items of currency or conceivably as weights, perhaps even instruments of athletic activities, such as jumping weights. However, where they have been excavated in tombs in Albania and elsewhere in the southern Balkans, they occur in pairs, making their function as objects of personal adornment more likely.
NOTES:
1. For parallels, see K. Schefold, Meisterwerke griechischer Kunst (Basel, 1960) 129 and 132, nos. I.68-69; Early Art in Greece: The Cycladic, Minoan, Mycenaean, and Geometric Periods 3000-700 BC, Andre Emmerich Gallery, Inc. (New York), May 7-June 11, 1965, lots 104-105; J. Bouzek, Graeco-Macedonian Bronzes (Prague, 1974) 124-26, type D2, fig. 40, pls. 29-30; K. Kilian, “Trachtzubehör der Eisenzeit zwischen Ägäis und Adria,” Prähistorische Zeitschrift 50 (1975): 9-140, esp. 109 and 131, pls. 1, 60, and 60.4; A. Zhaneta, “Les Tumuli de Kuç i Zi,” Iliria 6 (1976): 165-233, esp. 207-208, 217-20, 223-24, and 229; nos. V.5/b.1-2, V.14.4-5, V.16.8-9, V.33.1-2, V.46.1-2, V.55.3-4, V.60.1-2, and V.122.1-2; pls. 2-5, 8, 9, and 14; L. I. Marangou, Ancient Greek Art: The N. P. Goulandris Collection, N. P. Goulandris Foundation, Museum of Cycladic Art (Athens, 1985) 155, no. 248; D. von Bothmer, Glories of the Past: Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1990) 98-99, no. 80.a, fig. 1; and I. Kilian-Dirlmeier, Kleinfunde aus dem Athena Itonia-Heiligtum bei Philia (Thessalien) (Mainz, 2002) nos. 880-81, pl. 57.
David G. Mitten
