1932.56.26: Square-Based Bell

Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
The bell’s wall is cylindrical at the top and progressively expands into a wide, almost square base, in a smooth, convex curve. A ring handle emerges from the top of the bell, without a visible separation, and is now missing its top. A hole at the top preserved remains of a wire for holding the now-lost clapper, possibly a later repair.

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 “drawn-out” 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, for example, V. Galliazzo, Bronzi romani del Museo civico di Treviso (Rome, 1979) 156-57, nos. 2-5; J. Bonnet, P. Velay, and P. Forni, Les bronzes antiques de Paris, Collections du Musée Carnavalet (Paris, 1989) 122, no. 62; H. Menzel, Römische Bronzen aus Deutschland 2: Trier (Mainz, 1966) 84, no. 202, pl. 63; and G. Zampieri and B. Lavarone, eds., Bronzi antichi del Museo Archaeologico di Padova, exh. cat., Museo Archeologico Padova (Rome, 2000) 195, no. 380.

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; 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; Nowakowski 1988 (supra 1) 82-83 and 133-34; and Galliazzo 1979 (supra 1) 156-58.


Alexandra C. Villing