The article is devoted to the publication and new attribution of two bronze vessels originating from the looter’s excavations in 1912 of the Semikolennyy (“Seven-knee”) burial mound on the Shakhan ...mountain in the area of the Cossack village Tul’skaya in Adygea, confiscated from the inhabitants of the village and transferred to the Kuban Military Museum, currently stored in the Krasnodar State Historical and Archaeological Museum-Reserve named after E.D. Felitsyn. Until now publishers have unanimously attributed the oinochoe to the Eggers 124 type and, correspondingly, dated it to the 1st century CE. Without any doubt the vessel belongs to the so-called Form 2 (variant B), according to the classification of T. Weber, represented by finds mainly from the Peloponnese, Central Greece and South Italy, dating back to the 5th century BCE. In the recent decades five similar vessels were found in Macedonia, including: two — in the Sindos necropolis in the burials of the last third of the 6th and the turn of the 6th — 5th centuries BCE, two —in the burials of the first and third quarters of the 5th century BCE of the necropolis of Pydna. In the North Pontic area one such oinochoe was known up to nowadays, originating from tomb no. 19 of the burial mound no. 24/1876 of the Nymphaion necropolis, dated to the mid-5th century BCE. The second item was published as a “krater stand” without comment in the text, but the very fact that it was included in a book on Roman imports suggests that this item was attributed to the first centuries CE. In fact, this is the stand of an exaleiptron (ἐξάλειπτρον, exáleiptron), a rare-shaped vessel used to store oils and ointments. To date, 8 stands of exaleiptrons are known, including two specimens from the princely burials of the Trebenishte necropolis in the region of Ohrid Lake in North Macedonia, as well as from Delphi and the Idean Cave on Crete. Various points of view on the dating of these objects were expressed, ranging from the middle to the end of the 6th century BCE, as well as their origin either from the workshops of North/North-Western Greece or Laconia. Obviously, the published fragment of the exaleiptron stand was repaired in antiquity. As a result of alterations (one or two), the original function of the object was changed — the hollow sleeve was turned into the body and neck of the vessel, the lower part of which was formed by a plate with a hollow cylindrical container at the bottom. In connection with the published finds of great interest is the so-called Maikop Treasure, which, as a result of several sales, is currently divided among the museums of Berlin, Cologne, New York and Philadelphia. The objects now in Philadelphia were acquired from the collection of E. Canessa under the general name the “Maikop Treasure”. In 1913, items most likely belonging to the same group were acquired by the Museums of Berlin from the Armenian merchant Karapet. The point of view of M.I. Rostovtsev about the allocation of a rich complex of the middle or second half of the 5th century BCE as part of the “Maikop Treasure” was supported by other scholars. There is every reason to consider the “Maikop Treasure” as a set of items from the looter’s excavations of 1912 in the Semikolenny burial mound and cemeteries in its vicinity. It is highly probable that the bronze vessels under discussion could come from this complex, the gold items from which, for the most part, are now in the museums in Germany and the USA. In this regard, noteworthy is the fact that along with the gold finds, fragments of bronze vessels were also acquired by the Museums of Berlin, some of which could relate to the finds published here, while others also date back to the 6th — 5th centuries BCE. In this connection it is worth noting that in the burial complexes of the first half of the 4th century BCE of the cemetery near aul Ulyap, located about 70 km north from Tul’skaya, quite numerous Greek bronze vessels were found, which date back to the first or second quarter of the 5th century BCE, including those with repairs. Accordingly, the Trans-Kuban region is the area with the highest concentration of Greek bronze vessels of the Late Archaic — Early Classical period.
In this paper, pulsed infrared thermography is applied to the study of a mold casting Chinese bronze
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罍 dated to the late Shang dynasty (c.a.1250–1050 BC), currently housed in the Capital Normal ...University Museum. Many spacers and a defective area of this ancient bronze are partly covered with repair material. By analyzing thermographic images using a one-layer thermal diffusion model, it is found that the spacers were specifically made for this bronze. The thickness of the repairing material in the defective area is measured using thermal quadrupole modelling in multi-layer materials. This is the first application of this method to the field of cultural heritage conservation. These results provide a deeper understanding of the manufacturing process of ancient Chinese bronzes from the viewpoint of archaeological research. They also help assess the repair status from the conservation viewpoint.
Sont étudiés ici trois vases antiques méconnus, provenant du Centre-Est de la France. Ils sont typiques d’une technologie originale : les vases en bronze à décor émaillé incrusté. Leur analyse ...stylistique démontre leur appartenance à une série issue des ateliers insulaires de la Britannia. La particularité de cette production et la variété des formes, comme des décors, sont ainsi rappelées. L’enquête tente de démontrer que ces vases ont pu toucher en priorité une clientèle militaire mais sans exclusive. Les pièces de provenance régionale décrites ici ne permettent pas de trancher en ce sens, même si ces récipients de valeur devaient être possédés par des hommes de culture romaine avérée. La voie Trèves-Lyon a pu constituer un vecteur de diffusion de cette vaisselle spécifique.
Thirteen Zhou Dynasty bronze vessels and two slags from Zongyang County along the north bank of the Yangtze River in Anhui were analyzed by LA-MC-ICP-MS and EDXRF. The results of lead isotope ...analysis showed that there were two kinds of lead materials in the Zongyang bronzes. Vessels in Class I, thought to have originated from the Wannan region were primarily used during the Western Zhou and the following Spring and Autumn period; while those in Class II, possibly from the local mines in Zongyang County, were mainly present during the Warring States period. Such a shift in the ore material sources is also revealed by the trace element analysis of the Zongyang bronzes. With reference to the relevant historical documents, we suggest that the transformation of the bronze material sources might have been associated with the changes of the political situation during the Zhou Dynasty.
As many scholars have already pointed out, the practice of using historiography to interpret archeological data in Chinese archaeology has limited our approach to understand ancient China. While ...accounts in historiography provide rich and invaluable textual information, they should be seen as clues for further investigation or hypotheses that need to be tested in the field. Archaeologists have become more self-conscious in their use of historiography, but there are still many hidden assumptions that are not contested in the field of Anyang archaeology.
For the current authors, the fall of Anyang as the last capital of the Shang dynasty is one such assumption that needs to be further examined. The historical account of how the Western Zhou conquerors sacked the Shang capital has long been the only scenario used to understand the termination of Anyang. However, mold fragments for casting bronzes seen only in the Western Zhou territory have now been unearthed in Anyang. These finds introduce the possibility that while Anyang was sacked politically as the seat of the Shang ruling elite, the urban center itself may have continued. For instance, the bronze foundry may have been in operation after the fall of the Shang dynasty and manufactured bronze vessels for the newly risen Zhou elite. We therefore propose that it is time to reorient our research approach to study not just the time when the capital fell, but also the process of how Anyang as a Bronze Age mega center disappeared.
Bronze vessels constitute a particular class of domestic vessels that were made for long-term use, to be handed down through generations. This makes them chronologically less sensitive items, but ...also items that reflect both status and behavioural practices. The archaeological evidence from northern Italy suggests at least three main phases of use of bronze vessel between 388 BC and the Augustan period, which can be paralleled with the chronological division of the La Tène period. The contribution provides an interpretative overview of the evidence in an attempt to show the continuity, persistence and innovation in the production of individual forms and types of the bronze vessels. The area of Verona is an interesting case study for understanding the distribution of Hellenistic and Late Republican bronze vessels, because it has yielded at least 150 examples so far, dating from the 4th/3rd century BC to the Augustan period, that have mostly been recovered from funerary contexts. The contribution looks at the concentration of these items at some sites (Povegliano in particular) and their ties to a particular social rank. It also supplies a list of the bronze vessels from the area, mainly compiled during the reorganization of the collections in the Museo Archeologico di Verona conducted in the last two decades.
The paper presents the ICP-AES analysis of thirty-three artifacts made of copper alloys (tin bronze, lead bronze and brass) – adornments, vessels, weapons and several plates, strips and sticks ...gathered in the category “oth¬ers”. They are found in southeastern Bulgaria and dated between the 8th and the 3rd century BC. The trend for targeted selection of alloys according to the way of working and the function of items are discussed, as well as some features of technology. The composition of all samples is compared with cluster analysis. The clusters and the data for local production of some artifacts like jewels, helmets, horse-harness appliqués etc. admit the presumption that part of bronze vessels found in ancient Thrace could be local as well.
This is a short review of the “Mirroring China's Past” exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago (February 25th–May 13th, 2018). For reference, the exhibition catalog is: Tao Wang 汪涛 et al. ...Mirroring China's Past: Emperors, Scholars, and Their Bronzes 吉金鑒古. The Art Institute of Chicago, 2018. Distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London. 芝加哥藝術美院《吉金鑒古》展覽的評論。
El reciente avance en la investigación de yacimientos de la Segunda Edad del Hierro del interior peninsular está aportando datos reveladores sobre diversos materiales de cronología tardorrepublicana ...y procedencia itálica. El hallazgo en El Llano de la Horca de diversos elementos de la vajilla de bronce de esta época y origen, supone la mayor concentración de este tipo de materiales en el entorno y añade importante información acerca de la presencia de elementos importados en la Submeseta Sur.
The article analyzes a Roman thin-cast bronze saucepan discovered in the Dacian fortress from Ardeu (Hunedoara County, Romania). The authors argue that the object belongs to a small group of similar ...discoveries which comprises a variant of the thin-cast saucepans belonging to Petrovszky type III. The saucepan was produced between the last two decades of the 1st century BC and the third decade of the 1st century AD in a workshop which can be located in the north-eastern part of the Italic Peninsula, probably at Aquileia. This is the first discovery which attests with certainty the existence of the thin-cast saucepans in the north Danubian territory, element which is important in the context of the trade relations developed along the route connecting Aquileia with the Sava Valley and the Danube during the Augustan Age.
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