Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
A horse stands atop an eight-spoked wheel that has triangular openings between the spokes. The piece is solid cast. It has suffered considerable damage; one entire spoke and most of another have been lost from the lower part of the wheel, along with the section of the rim joining the two wheels. The horse’s tail and most of both ears are also missing. The wheel, broken or cracked in fifteen places, has been reassembled in a way that has left it somewhat skewed.
This piece was probably a pendant worn as personal jewelry suspended by a cord or light chain passed around the body of the horse. The horse and the wheel are decorated on both sides with stamped double concentric circles that have points in their centers, nine on the wheel and six on each side of the horse. A knob and disc project from the lower terminal opposite the horse.
The horse has the characteristics of the Thessalian workshop style as defined by J.-L. Zimmermann (1). The muzzle ends in a bulb. A line of modeling begins at the ears and continues along the side of the head to form cheek muscles. The entire composition is rendered in silhouette. A dynamic tension is imparted to the wheel by placing the stamped circles off-center between the spokes, so that the eye is drawn continuously around the rim.
I. Kilian-Dirlmeier notes the presence of bronze wheels with four, six, or eight spokes, with triangular spaces between the spokes and similarly stamped with circles as decorations, at Thessalian sanctuaries, from a grave in the Chalkidike, and from an unknown site on Ithaka (2). She also reports an eight-spoked wheel stamped with circles and surmounted by a bird from a grave in Thebes (3).
NOTES:
1. On the Thessalian style of Geometric horses, see J.-L. Zimmermann, Les chevaux de bronze dans l’art géométrique grec (Mainz, 1989) 242-60, esp. 257-58, pls. 55-60.
2. For eight-spoked wheels with stamped circle decoration and loops for suspension, see I. Kilian-Dirlmeier, Anhänger in Griechenland von der mykenischen bis zur spätgeometrischen Zeit, Prähistorische Bronzefunde 11.2 (Munich, 1979) 26-27, nos. 133-34, pl. 9. For small four-spoked bronze wheels surmounted by quadrupeds, see ibid., nos. 79-80, pl. 5 (“Chalkidike” and “Thessalian,” respectively). For horses perched atop groups of six adjoining four-spoked circles, see ibid., nos. 121-22, pl. 8 (“Pherai” and unknown provenience).
3. See ibid., 27, no. 139, pl. 9.
Tamsey Andrews and David G. Mitten
