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Bone inlay, decorated with two birds’ heads (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Bone inlay, decorated with two birds’ heads
The Lydians and their World
(2010)
Cat. 55
- Date
- Ca. 625-580 BC?, Lydian
- Museum
- Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 5351
- Museum Inventory No.
- 5351
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- BI61.027
- Material
- Bone
- Object Type
- Bone and Ivory
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- HoB
- Trench
- HoB
- Locus
- HoB Locus Bldg J
- B-Grid Coordinates
- W19 / S90 *98.85
- Description
- Bone plaque, round. The front side has an arcuated profile and shows two birds’ heads with large bills, the lower bill of one adjoining the upper bill of the other, occupying ca. two-thirds of the surface. Heads emerge from the straight border of an “exergue.” Round eyes are defined by incised circles and indented dots. One bill is more curved than the other; it encloses a circular space, approximately the same size as the eyes, with a central indented dot. The back side is flat, with a central cylindrical attachment tenon. Diameter 0.025 m, tenon 0.005 m high, 0.0075 m in diameter.
- Comments
- Recovered from an extramural occupation quarter at Sardis (excavation sector HoB) located ca. 30-70 m outside the western lower city defenses (the same quarter in which No. 54 was recovered). Confronted birds’ heads with large bills and abstract features are common in “nomadic animal style” art. See comment on No. 54. Scythian or Cimmerian, according to Ivantchik.
- See Also
- Dusinberre, “Ivories”; Greenewalt, “Introduction”. See also: R8, No. HoB 506.
- Bibliography
- Greenewalt 1973b, 33-34, fig. 11; Greenewalt et al. 1990, 166-167, figs. 34-37; Ivantchik 2001, 74-75.
- Author
- CHG