Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This small model of a phallus and testicles is rendered relatively naturalistically (1). No traces of a suspension loop or other method of attachment are present, indicating that this piece might have been an inlay. The object is modeled in the round.
Phallic amulets could have decorated a variety of objects, from horse trappings to lamps (2). Their symbolism provided them with an apotropaic, protective function (3).
NOTES:
1. Compare University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, inv. no. 29-196-8; A. Kaufmann-Heinimann, Die römischen Bronzen der Schweiz 5: Neufunde und Nachträge (Mainz, 1994) no. 335; and perhaps British Museum, London, inv. nos. 1814,0704.1240 and 1814,0704.1267.
2. 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.
3. M. Kohlert-Németh, Römische Bronzen 1: Aus Nida-Heddernheim, Götter und Dämonen, Archäologische Reihe 11 (Frankfurt am Main, 1988) 66-67.
Lisa M. Anderson
