A jagged shape with an arched wave carved onto it.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

A jagged shape which is uneven on all sides, as if all edges have been worn or broken away. There seems to be a single line carved across the surface, a symmetrical wave which starts at the bottom left, arches up to the middle, and dips back down to the bottom right. There does not seem to be any other decorations or markings. The surface is mottled brown and patina green.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1991.41
Title
Breastplate Fragment
Classification
Armor
Work Type
armor
Date
second half 7th century BCE
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Europe, Crete
Period
Orientalizing period
Culture
Greek
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/311861

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Bronze
Technique
Hammered
Dimensions
22.5 x 26.2 x 0.1 cm (8 7/8 x 10 5/16 x 1/16 in.)
Technical Details

Chemical Composition: XRF data from Tracer
Alloy: Bronze
Alloying Elements: copper, tin
Other Elements: lead, iron, silver, antimony, arsenic
K. Eremin, January 2014

Technical Observations: The patina is rough green with some black and areas of bright preserved bright metal in the interior. The breastplate fragment was probably formed into a sheet by cold working. However, only subtle indications of hammer marks are visible in the x-radiograph. The rough, corroded texture of the surface makes it difficult to be sure, but the incised and relief lines appear to have been formed by cold working both sides of the surface. Neither the surface nor the x-radiograph reveals evidence of individual hammered tool marks in the linear decorations or palmette patterns. It is possible these lines were created by drawing a smooth-pointed tool along the surface, perhaps with the aid of a guide. The smaller palmette pattern would likely have been produced with a single punch, but the surface is too damaged to see evidence of this.


Henry Lie (submitted 2000)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
From Afrati. Ex Norbert Schimmel Collection.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of the Schimmel Foundation, Inc.
Accession Year
1991
Object Number
1991.41
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This irregularly shaped breastplate fragment was for the front of the torso. A stylized depiction of musculature is incised in double lines. A curving double line is visible on both sides of the top of the preserved piece outlining the pectoral muscle.

Harvard’s Cretan armor is part of a larger cache, portions of which are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; and the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. Many of the other pieces in the group are highly decorated with incised and repoussé images. The objects do not appear to have been part of a dedication to a deity, given the inscriptions found on the pieces. Fourteen pieces of armor from the cache bear dedicatory inscriptions, naming several different warriors, and these seem to indicate that the group of armor was captured in battle and dedicated together as a group (1). It has also been suggested, however, that they perhaps were used for a war dance rather than for combat (2).

H. Hoffman noted that all the breastplates in the Afrati hoard seemed to be a Cretan variant of the bell cuirass that was standard in the Archaic period, which had front and back plates bearing stylized anatomical details (3).

NOTES:

1. See H. Hoffmann and A. E. Raubitschek, Early Cretan Armorers (Mainz, 1972) 15-16.

2. For a discussion of this armor cache being used for a war dance, see E. Simon, “Die Waffen von Arkades: Ausrüstung für die Pyrrhiche,” Anodos: Studies of the Ancient World 4-5 (2004-2005): 231-42, esp. 239-41; and M. Lesky, “4.b. Dance, G: Waffentänze in der griechischen und etruskischen Antike,” Thesaurus Cultus Et Rituum Antiquorum 2: 314-17.

3. See Hoffmann and Raubitschek 1972 (supra 1) 6-7.


Lisa M. Anderson

Subjects and Contexts

  • Ancient Bronzes

Related Objects

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