Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
The bell is hemispherical, with three sets of horizontal grooves encircling the its mantle. It is cast with an oval, double-stranded ring-handle with a stirrup-like thickening at the top and prominent knobs at the handle base.
It was excavated in a horse burial associated with a human grave at Gammai on the eastern side of the Nile in Nubia, at the Second Cataract (1). Because it was found together with four other similar bells at the horse’s neck and three more under the neck, it clearly served as a horse bell. At the time of excavation, one bell still preserved two fragments of a three-ply leather cord that passed through the suspension ring. Also found associated with the horse skeleton were an iron bit, remains of a pad-saddle, a plain iron ring, and remains of string trappings from the horse’s head (fragments of simple woven fabric with attached braids).
With its characteristic handle shape, the bell belongs to a type common in the Nubian Ballana Culture and found associated with horses and camels, for example at Quostol, c. 30 miles north of Gammai (2). It is one of two bells in the Harvard Art Museums from Gammai (the other is 1924.75.A)
A large variety of shapes of copper alloy bells are known from Nubia and also from Egypt in earlier periods, at least since Dynasty 23; they served as amulets (especially for children) and animal bells, votive offerings, and musical or signal instruments in sacred contexts (3). Rare, elaborately-decorated examples from Meroe depict enemies in fetters (4), while copper alloy bowls from post-Meroitic el-Hobagi have miniature bells attached to the rim (5). The bells appear to have served a variety of purposes, notably in a cultic context and as amulets for humans and animals. Their use as part of horse harnesses—usually of rulers’ horses—appears to be a particular feature of the Nubian post-Meroitic and Ballana Cultures that survived into the medieval period (6).
NOTES:
1. The findspot is grave shaft Y.1; see O. Bates and D. Dunham, “Excavations at Gammai,” in Varia Africana 4, eds. E. A. Hooton and N. I. Bates, Harvard African Studies 8 (Cambridge, MA, 1927) 1-123, esp. 89-90, nos. Y.1.2-6 and Y.1.10-12 (the eight bells recovered are now in three institutions: Harvard Art Museums, inv. no. 1924.75.B [this bell]; Boston Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 24.369; and Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, inv. no. 24-24-50/B4182 [6 bells]).
2. W. B. Emery and L. P. Kirwan, The Royal Tombs of Ballana and Quostol (Cairo, 1938) 262-67; and H. Hickmann, Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire: Instruments de musique (Cairo, 1949) 37-68. Particularly similar to the Harvard Art Museums bells is Cairo C.G. 69591, from Quostol; see ibid., 61, no. 69591, pl. 34.A.
3. H. Hickmann,“Glocken A. Altertum,” in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart 5, ed. F. Blume (Kassel, 1956) 267-76; and id., “Zur Geschichte der altägyptischen Glocken,” Musik und Kirche 30.2 (1951): 3-19.
4. T. Kendall, Kush: Lost Kingdom of the Nile, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, 1982) 53-55, no. 77; and A. Hermann, “Magische Glocken aus Meroë,” Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 93 (1966): 79-89.
5. D. Wildung, ed., Sudan: Ancient Kingdoms of the Nile, exh. cat., Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Kunsthalle der Hypo-Stiftung, Munich (New York, 1997) 385-88, nos. 458 and 465.
6. Compare D. Welsby, The Medieval Kingdoms of Nubia (London, 2002) 81; id. and C. M. Daniels, eds., Soba: Archaeological Research at a Mediaeval Capital on the Blue Nile (London, 1991) 127-28, no. 7.
Alexandra C. Villing
