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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1978.495.34
Title
Stamp of Cossinus Eutychianus
Classification
Tools and Equipment
Work Type
stamp
Date
1st-3rd century CE
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Europe
Period
Roman Imperial period
Culture
Roman
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/312116

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Leaded bronze
Technique
Cast, lost-wax process
Dimensions
3 x 5.8 x 2.5 cm (1 3/16 x 2 5/16 x 1 in.)
ring, exterior: 3.7 cm (1 7/16 in.)
right exterior - face to back of ring: 2.2 cm (7/8 in.)
stamp face: 2.5 x 5.8 x 0.8 cm (1 x 2 5/16 x 5/16 in.)
metal: 0.8 cm (5/16 in.)
stamp base from back of ring: 3 cm (1 3/16 in.)
Technical Details

Chemical Composition: ICP-MS/AAA data from sample, Leaded Bronze:
Cu, 75; Sn, 6.95; Pb, 17.65; Zn, 0.074; Fe, 0.01; Ni, 0.04; Ag, 0.17; Sb, 0.11; As, less than 0.10; Bi, less than 0.025; Co, less than 0.005; Au, less than 0.01; Cd, less than 0.001
J. Riederer

Technical Observations: The stamp is cast in one piece with its ring handle. The handle was modeled in the wax. The letters seem to have been carved in the wax, and there are grooves between the lines. The handle has been distorted and bears several cracks, which suggest that the ring was slightly crushed and would have originally been more rounded. The exposure of shiny metal in the cracks suggests that the distortion is modern damage that occurred after the time of burial. There is black, brown, cupritic, and green corrosion on the surface, but there is not much mineralization. The reddish tint on the stamp’s letters and border may have resulted from the stamp being pressed into an ink pad. Red splotches are embedded in white material at the base of the handle.


Francesca G. Bewer (submitted 2011)

Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: two lines in retrograde Latin,
    COSSINI
    EVTVCHIANI

    [Translation: "Of Cossinus Eutychianus"]

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Formerly in the collection of the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, no. E-2184.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Transfer from The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University
Accession Year
1978
Object Number
1978.495.34
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
The stamp is rectangular but the short sides are decorated with scalloped edges. The handle consists of a large ring, which is attached to the back of the plate that bears the stamp. The stamp itself presents a hedera, or design of ivy, as a decorative way of filling in the extra space at the end of the first line. Serifs are found on most of the letters. The letters of the stamp are in high relief.

The stamp reads:
COSSINI
EVTYCHIANI

“Of Cossinus Eutychianus” (1).

Each of the six Roman bronze stamps in the Harvard Art Museums consists of a plate, on which the die of the stamp is carved, and a ring, attached to the back of the plate, which serves as a handle for applying the stamp (2). With the exception of 1977.216.3250, Harvard’s stamps are approximately the same size (c. 5-6 cm long and 2-3 cm wide), and all are inscribed with text. Stamps were produced in a variety of shapes. Most are rectangular, but they could also be elliptical, circular, rhomboid, or in the shape of a tabella ansata, a foot, or, less commonly, a hand. Five of the six stamps in the Harvard Art Museums are rectangular. Four of these have two lines of writing inscribed on them; one other rectangular stamp contains a single line of text, which is limited to initials. The sixth stamp, 1977.216.1963, takes the shape of a foot and also has only one line of writing. This stamp appears to contain pseudo-alphabetic characters. Four others are inscribed in Latin, with the lettering raised and written backwards, a mirror image of the text the stamp would produce. 1977.216.3250 is inscribed in Greek letters but not written retrograde, meaning that the stamp’s impression would have been backwards.

Many types of objects in the ancient world bore stamped impressions, including amphorae, roof tiles, bricks, lamps, glass vessels, and terra sigillata (fine pottery). Textiles and bread were also sometimes stamped, and stamps like Harvard’s may have been used for such a purpose (3). Roof tiles and bricks were being stamped in Greece as early as the Archaic period. In the West, the earliest evidence for stamps comes from amphorae dated from the end of the fourth to the beginning of the third centuries BCE (4).

The texts of stamps most often refer to the name of the producer or manufacturer of the product in the genitive case (e.g., 1978.495.34 “of Cossinus Eutychianus”). In certain instances, the name is written using ligatures or abbreviations. Other stamps include an image such as a leaf (hedera) or an abstract pattern, while some stamps have writing in what seems to be an imitation of alphabetic characters, although it is clearly not Latin or Greek (5). In these cases, where the recipients of such goods were most likely illiterate, the presence of a stamp on the object may have sufficed to guarantee a certain level of quality. Stamps could have varying degrees of decoration along the border and may or may not have a horizontal element to divide separate lines of text (6). The extent a stamp was used varied according to workshop; certain workshops continued to use their stamps until the writing was no longer legible before replacing them (7).

NOTES:

1. This stamp, or one identical to it, was in Rome in 1877 and is published as CIL XV 8173; see H. Dressel, ed., Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum XV: Instrumentum Domesticum (Berolini, 1891, 1899).

2. For similar stamps, see CIL XV (supra 1); M. Buoncuore, “Signacula nel Museo Profano della Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,” Epigraphica 46 (1984): 158-67; and D. Manacorda, “Appunti sulla bollatura in età romana,” in The Inscribed Economy, ed. W. V. Harris (Ann Arbor, 1993) 37-54.

3. For more information on bread stamps, see C. L. Meyers and E. M. Meyers, “Another Jewish Bread Stamp?” Israel Exploration Journal 25.2-3 (1975): 154-55; and M. J. Milne “A Bronze Stamp from Boscoreale,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 25.9 (1930): 188, 190.

4. G. Pucci, “Inscribed instrumentum and the ancient economy,” in Epigraphic Evidence: Ancient History from Inscriptions, ed. J. Bodel (New York, 2001) 137-90, esp. 143.

5. Ibid., 144.

6. Compare A. Oxé, H. Comfort, and P. Kenrick, Corpus Vasorum Arretinorum: A Catalogue of the Signatures, Shapes and Chronology of the Italian Sigillata, 2nd edn. (Bonn, 2000) 529-34, for a classification of the various types of stamps for terra sigillata.

7. Ibid., 13.


Rebecca R. Benefiel

Publication History

  • Susan Auth, Artisans of Ancient Rome: Production into Art, Minerva, The Newark Museum (Newark, NJ, 1997), Vol. 9(3), p. 4, no. 5.

Exhibition History

  • Artisans of Ancient Rome: Production into Art, The Newark Museum, 09/11/1997 - 12/31/1998

Subjects and Contexts

  • Ancient Bronzes

Related Works

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