Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This lunate razor has a small ring handle, broken at the end. There are no traces of decorative spurs on the remaining section of the handle. The blade is of uniform thickness, and there are no surviving indications of decoration. A large section of the blade, just beyond the midpoint, was broken off and reattached. The edge of the blade is heavily chipped. The surface patina is pale olive green with some areas of light brown encrustation.
The razor is an example of V. Bianco Peroni’s type “Quattro Fontanili,” dated from the ninth to eighth centuries BCE and typically found within Villanovan areas (e.g., Tarquinia, Vulci, and Veii) (1).
It is difficult to understand the use and symbolism of the bronze objects from Iron Age Italy that are classified as razors. Possibly used for trimming hair or beards, these razors seem to have had some symbolic value. They are typically found in male burials, and their inclusion in grave goods may indicate that the deceased was a man of mature age; or, in cases where they are found in female burials, they may be indicative of the owner’s elevated social status (2). Some razors have been found with fibulae fastened through the handle, demonstrating that they could be worn (3). Many examples have repaired handles, showing that the razors were important enough to fix if broken (4).
Razors are typically plain or covered with incised decoration, most frequently lines, bands of interlocking triangles, meanders, lines of dots hatched swastikas, and Maltese crosses. The two-edged examples, like 1987.135.28, more often bear incised concentric circles or have decorative perforations on the blade. Often there are decorative spurs, crescents, or volutes on the handles, depending on the type.
NOTES:
1. V. Bianco Peroni, I rasoi nell’Italia continentale, Prähistorische Bronzefunde 7.2 (Munich, 1979) 80-83, nos. 456-83, esp. nos 456-59 and 467-70.
2. See ibid., 178-82.
3. Compare ibid., nos. 156, 244, and 1042.
4. D. A. Caccioli, The Villanovan, Etruscan, and Hellenistic collections in the Detroit Institute of Arts (Leiden, 2009) 114; compare Bianco Peroni 1979 (supra 1) nos. 417 and 849.
Lisa M. Anderson
