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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1964.12.47
Title
Spindle Hook
Other Titles
Former Title: Small, Conical, Socketed Tool Head Ending in Hook
Classification
Tools and Equipment
Work Type
tool/equipment
Date
5th-7th century
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Asia, Sardis (Lydia)
Find Spot: Middle East, Türkiye (Turkey), Western Türkiye (Turkey)
Period
Byzantine period, Early
Culture
Byzantine
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/304128

Location

Location
Level 3, Room 3620, University Study Gallery
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Physical Descriptions

Medium
Bronze
Technique
Hammered
Dimensions
3.1 x 0.7 cm (1 1/4 x 1/4 in.)
Technical Details

Chemical Composition: XRF data from Tracer
Alloy: Bronze
Alloying Elements: copper, tin
Other Elements: lead, iron, antimony, arsenic

K. Eremin, January 2014

Technical Observations: The patina is dark green with gray burial accretions. Some distortions have opened the seam; the damage appears to be ancient.

The object was formed by cold working. An elongated triangular sheet of metal was folded lengthwise, creating a conical shape, and where the edges met, they were hammered to form a join or seam. The narrow end of the cone was hammered into the hook.


Henry Lie (submitted 2012)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Brought from Sardis; by Frederick Marquand Godwin, New York, (by 1914), by descent; to his wife Dorothy W. Godwin, New York (1914-1964), gift; to the Fogg Museum of Art, 1964.

Note: Frederick M. Godwin was the photographer for the excavations at Sardis with Howard Crosby Butler in 1913 and 1914.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Mrs. Frederick M. Godwin
Accession Year
1964
Object Number
1964.12.47
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This object is a small conical shape is hollow and narrows into a hook. It is an example of the type of object known as a spindle hook and would have been placed on a wooden shaft for use in the process of spinning (1).


NOTES:

1. See R. M. Harrison, Excavations at Sarachane in Istanbul 1: The Excavations, Structures, Architectural Decoration, Small Finds, Coins, Bones, and Molluscs (Princeton, 1986) 253-54, no. 404, pl. 352; and E. Militsi, “Small Finds from the Early Christian Settlement of Kefalos in Cos, Dodecanese,” in Byzantine Small Finds in Archaeological Contexts, eds. B. Böhlendorf-Arslan and A. Ricci, BYZAS 15 (Istanbul, 2012) 263-75, esp. 266 and 270-71, figs. 4 and 12.


Lisa M. Anderson

Publication History

  • Jane Waldbaum, Metalwork from Sardis: The Finds through 1974, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1983), p. 152, no. 1003, pl. 58.

Exhibition History

  • 32Q: 3620 University Study Gallery, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/20/2024 - 05/05/2024; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 08/31/2024 - 01/05/2025

Subjects and Contexts

  • Ancient Bronzes

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu