Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
The two-handled basin stands on a splaying, bell-shaped foot. It is completely preserved except for some damage to the rim and two breaks in the thin, hammered walls. The foot, which is soldered to the bottom, has caused a slight bulge in the interior. The deep bowl curves inward before terminating in a flaring rim, which is decorated with an egg-and-dart molding on the exterior. The two horizontal handles bear three ring-moldings: a triple one in the apex and simpler ones on the sides. The handle attachments in the form of ivy leaves (“Herzblatt”) were cast in one piece with the handle and soldered onto the body of the basin. The vessel was finished on a lathe. A number of incised, lathe-turned lines surround the upper interior part of the rim, and a centering mark in the center of the bowl is surrounded by another line. Lathe-turned lines also decorate the cast foot.
Vessels of this type served as washbasins and were probably known as pelvis by the Romans (1). The shape can be traced back to ancient Greek basins. Examples of similar proportions with a high foot, contracted neck, and protruding rim belong to the late Hellenistic and early Imperial periods. The late Hellenistic basins with grape-leaf handle attachments have high, lathe-turned feet similar to the Harvard vessel, whereas the Augustan and early Imperial basins with hand-shaped attachments have a similarly thickened rim decorated with egg-and-dart (2). Ivy-leaf attachment plates are not otherwise attested on basins but occur on second- and first-century BCE situlae and jugs (3).
The Harvard basin was excavated in a cemetery of the Meroitic period in the Gammai plain of ancient Nubia, in the northern part of modern Sudan. The grave consisted of a shaft-like dromos and a chamber with a rich array of burial goods surrounding the skeleton of an adult male. These burial goods included pottery, bronze, and silver vessels as well as a silver signet ring worn by the deceased (4). The occurrence of other basins of related shapes in Nubia and Egypt may suggest a production center in Egypt (5), but the “Herzblatt” attachment of this basin points to the west. The presence of the basin and other imported bronze vessels in Grave 115 at Gammai attests the readiness of the local Nubian élite to adopt utensils of a Graeco-Roman origin.
NOTES:
1. W. Hilgers, Lateinische Gefäßnamen, Beihefte der Bonner Jahrbücher 31 (Düsseldorf, 1969) 248-49, no. 285.
2. H. J. Eggers, Der römische Import im Freien Germanien, Atlas der Urgeschichte 1 (Hamburg, 1951) types 94-96; M. Bolla, “Les bassins,” in La vaisselle tardo-républicaine en bronze, eds. M. Feugère and C. Rolley, Centre de recherche sur les techniques gréco-romaines 13 (Dijon, 1991) 113-20; and S. Tassinari, Il vasellame bronzeo di Pompei, Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei: Cataloghi 5 (Rome, 1993) 94, type S2121.
3. Such as Eggers 1951 (supra 2) type 19; M. Bolla, C. Boube, and J.-P. Guillaumet, “Les situles,” in Feugère and Rolley 1991 (supra 2) 7-22, esp. 16-17; C. Boube, “Les cruches,” in Feugère and Rolley 1991 (supra 2) 23-45, esp. 23-32 (“type Gallarate”).
4. O. Bates and D. Dunham, “Excavations at Gammai,” in Varia Africana 4, eds. E. A Hooton and N. I. Bates, Harvard African Studies 8 (Cambridge, MA, 1927) 1-123, esp. 39-43. Of the other bronze finds, three are kept in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: inv. no. 24.366 (an askos); see M. Comstock and C. C. Vermeule, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Greenwich, CT, 1971) 334-35, no. 471; inv. nos. 24.365 (a bowl with figural decoration); and 24.367.A-B (a situla with lid). See D. Wildung, ed., Sudan: Ancient Kingdoms of the Nile, exh. cat., Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich (New York, 1997) 286-87 and 380, nos. 304 and 452 (dated too late). Others are in the Peabody Museum of Harvard University: inv. nos. 24-24-50/ B3917 (the handle of a mug), 24-24-50/ B3918 (part of a “beer pipette”), and 24-24-50/ B3920 (metal fragments).
5. D. M. Dixon, “A Meroitic Cemetery at Sennar (Makwar),” Kush 11 (1963): 231-32, fig. 2, pl. 49.c-d; Comstock and Vermeule 1971 (supra 4) 334-36, no. 472; I. Hofmann, Beiträge zur meroitischen Chronologie, Studia Instituti Anthropos 31 (St. Augustin bei Bonn, 1978) 220-21, figs. 35-36; J. W. Hayes, Greek, Roman, and Related Metalware in the Royal Ontario Museum: A Catalogue (Toronto, 1984) 85-86, no. 133; and L. Török, “Kush and the External World,” Studia Meroitica 10 (1984): 96, 126-27, 144, 168, and 183; nos. 52-53 and 192.
Susanne Ebbinghaus
