BM 136800
By kind permission of British Museum
- By kind permission of British Museum
- By kind permission of British Museum
DEPOSIT INFORMATION
| Deposit | London, The British Museum, BM 136800=1977,0226.2 |
| Notes | Purchased from Nicholas Wright. |
SUPPORT INFORMATION
| Support type | Artefact » Personal adornment » Fitting | ||||
| Material | Gold | ||||
| Measures | h. 6, w. 4.1, th 2.7, wt. 12.4 g | ||||
| Decoration |
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| Notes on support and decorations | Gold fitting in the form of a bull’s head. This object was made from thin raised sheet with two pairs of six applied double hemispheres, each arranged in a circle, to represent the ears, seven double-hemispheres made in the same way were added around the hollow muzzle and tufts (each made as a double-hemisphere attached to the top of short cylinders) added along the top of the head. The back was originally flat and applied as a second sheet, but torn in antiquity; it may have had a small square aperture, some 1.5 across, in the centre to allow it to be attached. The eye stones are of circular banded agate with a pale grey lower stratum and dark brown pupil and were set in cloisons made separately and sunk into the sheet metal; an ear made of folded gold sheet remains behind the right horn. The object is slightly crushed and the sheet at the back is torn. |
ORIGIN AND PROVENANCE
| Modern site | Unknown |
| Ancient site | Unknown |
| Geographical area | Unknown |
| Country | Unknown |
| Notes | On the card related to the item two conjectural proveniences are supposed: Marib (Sabaʾ) and Wādī Bayḥān (Qataban) |
| Link to site record |
CULTURAL NOTES
The exaggerated folds of skin around the muzzle and eyes of these objects are nevertheless a very characteristic feature of ancient South Arabian depictions of bulls, regardless of size or medium. There was a very similar gold bull’s head in the former collection of a Parsi merchant resident in Aden called Kaiky Muncherjee (1873-1955), and which is largely said to have largely derived from sites in the Wādī Markha region of southern Yemen (Conti Rossini 1927: 750). Similar but larger eye stones were also used as settings in gold roundels in the Muncherjee collection (Doe 1971: pl. VII; Turner 1973: 133).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
| Simpson 2002: 122, cat. 137 | Simpson, St John (ed.) 2002. Queen of Sheba. Treasures from the ancient Yemen. London: British Museum Press. [Catalogue of an exhibition held at the British Museum, London] |
| Conti Rossini 1926-1927 | Conti Rossini, Carlo (=Karolus) 1926-1927. Dalle Rovine di Ausan. Dedalo, 7: 727-754. |
| Doe 1971 | Doe, D. Brian 1971. Southern Arabia. London: Thames and Hudson. |
| Turner 1973 | Turner, Geoffrey 1973. South Arabian gold jewellery. Iraq, 35: 127-139. |