Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This plump bronze bird may be a goose, judging from its long, curving neck and heavy body. Its surface is a shiny blackish brown with some dark green patches. The metal is rough on the interior surfaces of both legs, and there are three tiny holes: one behind the left leg and two others beneath the body to the rear of the legs. Incised parallel lines mark the leg joints, the backside of the upper neck, and the point where the tail narrows as it rises from the back. The squared-off end of the tail is marked with twelve short parallel lines. Incised cross-hatching is visible on the breast and on the sides of the body above the legs.
The head has an elongated bill, which curves upward at the tip, and relief pellet eyes; the right eye is placed slightly farther back than the left eye. The sinuous neck flows into a curving breast and broad horizontal back. The flat, wide legs, with their spur-like joints, are bowed and terminate in forward-projecting feet on which the bird is able to stand easily. A sturdy, transverse loop rises from the back.
This bird may have been produced in a Thessalian or possibly Macedonian workshop of the late eighth century BCE. A close parallel to this piece is in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (1). Similar birds in the Volos Museum come from Pherai, Thessaly (2). In the case of another large hollow-cast bronze bird with fanciful crest and tail, the ceramic core shifted during casting, creating a gap through which the core is visible. Presumably, the Harvard bird contains a similar ceramic core (3).
NOTES:
1. D. K. Hill, “Other Geometric Objects in Baltimore,” American Journal of Archaeology 60 (1956): 35-42, esp. 36-37, figs. 2-3, pl. 28.
2. J. Bouzek, “Die griechisch-geometrischen Bronzevögel,” Eirene 6 (1967): 115-39, esp. figs. 6 and 11; K. Kilian, Fibeln in Thessalien von der mykenischen bis zur archaischen Zeit, Prähistorische Bronzefunde 14.2 (Munich, 1975) 168-87, pls. 85-86; I. Kilian-Dirlmeier, Anhänger in Griechenland von der mykenischen bis zur spätgeometrischen Zeit, Prähistorische Bronzefunde 11.2 (Munich, 1979) 139-41, pls. 42-44; and J.-L. Zimmermann, “Oiseaux géométrique de Grèce central et septentrionale,” Numismatica e Antichità Classiche (Quaderni Ticinesi) 17 (1988): 37-53.
3. Previously in the Norbert Schimmel collection and now in a California private collection; see D. G. Mitten and S. F. Doeringer, Master Bronzes from the Classical World, exh. cat., The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; City Art Museum of St. Louis; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Mainz, 1967) 41-42, no. 25.
Tamsey Andrews and David G. Mitten
