Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
The bell has four sides, rising from an almost square bulging base towards a wide domed top, in a smooth gradually curving, bulging shape. The ring handle is angular with rounded edges on the outside. Remains of a loop intended to hold the now-lost clapper are preserved on the bell’s interior. Four semi-circular projections at the base serve as feet.
Square-based bells, usually with an angular loop-handle, were common over a long period of time and in many variations throughout the Roman Empire, probably going back to the Hellenistic period (1).
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 (2). 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 (3). 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 (4).
NOTES:
1. For square-based bells with small “feet” at the corners, see W. Nowakowski, “Metallglocken aus der römischen Kaiserzeit im europäischen Barbarikum,” Archaeologia Polona 27 (1988): 69-146, esp. 77-78 and 83-86; compare also G. Zampieri and B. Lavarone, eds., Bronzi antichi del Museo Archaeologico di Padova, exh. cat., Museo Archeologico Padova (Rome, 2000) 194, no. 380b-c; C. Flügel, Die römischen Bronzegefässe von Kempten-Cambodunum, Cambodunumforschungen 5 (Kallmünz, 1993) 102, no. 179-80, pl. 34; 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, fig. 10; and B. Cunliffe, Excavations at Fishbourne 1961-1969, Vol. 2: The Finds (Leeds, 1971) 112, no. 107.
2. On the history of ancient bells and their uses, see 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; M. Trumpf-Lyritzaki, “Glocke,” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 11 (Stuttgart, 1981) 164-96; N. Spear, jr., A Treasury of Archaeological Bells (New York, 1978); 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.
3. 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.
4. See references supra 2, as well as A. Villing, “Glocke,” Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum 5 (Los Angeles, 2005) 379-81; Furger and Schneider 1993 (supra 1) 166-71; Nowakowski 1988 (supra 1) 82-83 and 133-34; and V. Galliazzo, Bronzi romani del Museo civico di Treviso (Rome, 1979) 156-58.
Alexandra C. Villing
