Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This amulet has an hourglass-shape with a transverse loop at the top. The central portion of the amulet appears to be the shaft of a phallus with some incised details, and the testicles are modeled at the bottom. On the sides at the top and bottom are other rounded elements that may be meant to represent doubled testicles or phalloi, as appear on some other phallic amulets (1). The incised details may be intended to indicate a face (2).
Phallic amulets could have decorated a variety of objects, from horse trappings to lamps (3). Their symbolism provided them with an apotropaic, protective function (4).
NOTES:
1. 1995.844.5. Compare also British Museum, London, inv. no. 1814,0704.1271.
2. For examples with representations of faces, see N. Franken, “Die antiken Bronzen im Römisch-Germanischen Museum Köln: Die Fragmente von Grossbronzen und die figürlichen Bronzegeräte,” Kölner Jahrbuch 29 (1996): 7-203, esp. 113-14, nos. 134-35, fig. 218. For other examples of figural phallic amulets, see British Museum, London, inv. nos. 1814,0704.1254 and 1814,0704.1265.
3. P. M. Allison, The Insula of the Menander at Pompeii 3: The Finds (Oxford, 2006) 33. For lamps, see L. Pirzio Biroli Stefanelli, ed., Il bronzo dei Romani: Arredo e suppellettile (Rome, 1990) 190 and 270, no. 55, figs. 161-62, where a triple amulet is part of an elaborate hanging lamp, which also includes several bells and an ithyphallic figurine.
4. M. Kohlert-Németh, Römische Bronzen 1: Aus Nida-Heddernheim, Götter und Dämonen, Archäologische Reihe 11 (Frankfurt am Main, 1988) 66-67.
Lisa M. Anderson
