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Two bronze lions’-head-shaped handle attachments. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul)
Two bronze lions’-head-shaped handle attachments
The Lydians and their World
(2010)
Cat. 224
- Date
- 5th to 7th c, with early 7th c context suggesting 6th to 7th c, Late Roman
- Museum
- Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 5938
- Museum Inventory No.
- 5938
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- M63.022ab
- Material
- Bronze/Copper Alloy
- Object Type
- Metalwork
- Metalwork Type
- Box or Casket Fitting
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- Syn
- Trench
- Syn 63
- B-Grid Coordinates
- E119 / N3.2 *98.25
- Description
- Two small, nearly identical lion’s heads, with flat backs for attachments to some other object, such as a chest or piece of furniture. The heads are simply rendered, with round ears, long muzzles, and open mouths that may have held ring handles. Rather schematic incised lines and dots indicate mane, muzzle, and jowls; zigzag lines around the backplate.
- Comments
- This pair comes from a late-occupation level immediately in front of the Synagogue, after the magnificent building had been largely abandoned and the space was being used for other activities, domestic and commercial. It is tempting to see in the lion imagery of Nos. 223-224 a recollection among Roman Sardians of the lions of their Lydian past, but the motif is far too common in the Roman world to draw such conclusions.
- See Also
- Bibliography
- Hanfmann 1964, 47; Crawford 1974, 293; Waldbaum 1983a, no. 409-410.
- Author
- NDC, MLR