Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This cast ornament consists of two loops: a circular opening that ends in a point on the inner side, and a semi-rectangular enclosure joined to the circular opening by two curved bars that extend from either side of the point. The edges of the rectangular enclosure slope inwards. The surface around the circular loop shows traces of a scalloped exterior edge. The reverse surface is flat and undecorated. The fitting has been identified as a buckle (1). It does not, however, possess the typical grooved bar around which the tongue of the buckle would twist (2). It is possible that the object served as the loop section in, for example, a horse bit, with the end of a rein attached to the straight bar (3). But the piece is rather delicate and may not have been sturdy enough for this function. Regardless of its intended use, unattached fittings like this could have been adapted to serve a variety purposes, for example as key chains (4).
NOTES:
1. J. Waldbaum, Archaeological Exploration of Sardis 8: Metalwork from Sardis (Cambridge, MA, 1983) 153, no. 1010.
2. Compare four similarly shaped belt buckles in the Menil Collection, Houston, that include a groove for the tongue: inv. nos. X490.442, X 490.443, X490.461, and X490.462 (all unpublished).
3. Byzantine fittings of generally similar format, which were excavated in areas of modern-day Greece and Turkey, specifically at Corinth, Anemurium, and Saraçhane in Istanbul, and previously identified as belt buckles, may instead be horse trappings. See G. R. Davidson, Corinth 12: Minor Objects (Princeton, 1952) 267-68 and 272, nos. 2197-201 and 2207-208; J. Russell, “Byzantine Instrumenta Domestica from Anemurium: The Significance of Context,” in City, Town, and Countryside in the Early Byzantine Era, ed. R. L. Hohlfelder (Boulder, 1982) 133-63, esp. 138 and 160, fig. 6.6; and R. M. Harrison, Excavations at Saraçhane in Istanbul 1: The Excavations, Structures, Architectural Decoration, Small Finds, Coins, Bones, and Molluscs (Princeton, 1986) 264, no. 579, pl. 408.
4. Compare a piece in the Menil Collection, Houston, inv. no. 79-24.227 DJ (unpublished).
Alicia Walker
