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Bronze bowl with rim bands and swivelling ring handles. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul) -
Bronze bowl with rim bands and swiveling ring handles. Detail of handle. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul)
Bronze bowl with rim bands and swivelling ring handles
The Lydians and their World
(2010)
Cat. 158
- Date
- First half of 6th c BC, Lydian
- Museum
- Uşak, Archaeological Museum, 1.5.89
- Museum Inventory No.
- 1.5.89
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- Uşak 1.5.89
- Material
- Bronze/Copper Alloy
- Object Type
- Metalwork
- Metalwork Type
- Metal Vessel
- Site
- Basmacı Tumulus
- Description
- “The broad shallow bowl has a slightly thickened rim and flat bottom. At opposite sides of the bowl are two three-quarter bolsters with finely ridged ends and central molding, attached below the rim by two rivets from inside. The attenuated ends of a swiveling ring handle are inserted into holes in the ends of each bolster. The thicker central part of the handle is decorated with pairs of encircling grooves, some with an additional finer central groove. From the central molding of the bolster, and cast in one with it, rises a half-spool; the knob at its end is decorated with a rosette of four elongated concave petals with an indentation as its center. The rim band at each side, from bolster to bolster, is made of six separate sections of rod of semicircular section, encircled by grooves in groups of three. Each section is attached by solder. The section immediately to the left of one of the bolsters is missing. The sections of the rim bands alternate with a total of five vertical spools at each side, which are attached by rivets from inside the bowl. The spools have fine central and end moldings, and terminate at each end in a hemispherical knob, that at the top identical to the knobs on the bolster spools. The knobs at the bottom are undecorated, although on some an off-center indentation is visible. The upper ends of all twelve spools project above rim level. On the inner wall of the bowl, on line with the second spool to the right of one of the bolsters, is a long flat triangular piece of bronze from rim to floor, attached by two pins at the top, which was probably to repair a crack in the bowl. At the center of the floor projects a pinhead, its other end hammered flat and flush with the underside of the bowl. Around the pinhead is a circular mark. All parts of the vessel were cast separately. Still surviving on the bowl are textile remains of the cloth that had been used to cover the deceased and the grave goods.
Comparable bronze bowls, with bolster attachments, swiveling ring handles, and rim bands with spools, were recovered from the Tumulus MM at Gordion and from a tumulus at Fidanlık near Ankara (Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, AMM 12875), all of eighth-century BC date; in all of these, however, there is a short gap between the rim bands at each side, and the total number of spools is at maximum eight. A similar bronze bowl with swiveling ring handles and a total of four spools was recovered from Tumulus C at Bayındır near Elmalı” (Özgen and Öztürk 1996). Height 0.036 m, diameter of bowl 0.246 m, diameter of handles 0.096 m, weight 1003.62 g.
- Comments
- Very similar to the ceramic example with marbled decoration No. 149; this is more typically a Phrygian shape, with comparanda from Ankara and Bayındır. The marbled ceramic example No. 149, however, shows that the shape had been adopted into the Lydian repertoire.
- See Also
- Baughan, “Burial Customs”; Özgen, “Lydian Treasure”.
- Bibliography
- Özgen and Öztürk 1996, no. 225.
- Author
- İÖ