1920.44.142: Fragmentary Axe Head
Weapons and AmmunitionIdentification and Creation
- Object Number
- 1920.44.142
- Title
- Fragmentary Axe Head
- Other Titles
- Alternate Title: Head of an Axe, fragment
- Classification
- Weapons and Ammunition
- Work Type
- axe
- Date
- 17th-13th century BCE
- Places
- Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World
- Period
- Bronze Age, Late
- Culture
- Greek
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/303661
Physical Descriptions
- Medium
- Bronze
- Technique
- Cast, lost-wax process
- Dimensions
- 8.9 x 7.8 x 2.3 cm (3 1/2 x 3 1/16 x 7/8 in.)
- Technical Details
-
Chemical Composition: XRF data from Tracer
Alloy: Bronze
Alloying Elements: copper, tin
Other Elements: lead, iron, silver, arsenic
K. Eremin, January 2014Technical Observations: The patina is characterized by various green, brown, black, and red corrosion products on a rough and pitted surface. The back of the axe is damaged, while numerous dents and gouges in the surface are also visible. The axe head is a solid cast and was worked to shape and finish.
Carol Snow (submitted 2002)
Provenance
- Recorded Ownership History
-
Miss Elizabeth Gaskell Norton, Boston, MA and Miss Margaret Norton, Cambridge, MA (by 1920), gift; to the Fogg Art Museum, 1920.
Note: The Misses Norton were daughters of Charles Elliot Norton (1827-1908).
Acquisition and Rights
- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of the Misses Norton
- Accession Year
- 1920
- Object Number
- 1920.44.142
- Division
- Asian and Mediterranean Art
- Contact
- am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
- Permissions
-
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Descriptions
Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This is half of a double axe, which would have been suitable for chopping and splitting wood, is now broken across one edge of the transverse perforation where the metal is thin. It is similar to contemporary American steel-timber axes. The cutting edge of the axe is rounded; the top and bottom surfaces of the axe flare outward concavely to the cutting edge. Its fragmentary state suggests that it may have been broken up for scrap and have been part of a hoard intended for melting down to cast new objects. This axe could have come from anywhere in Greece, the Aegean Islands, or Crete (1).
NOTES:
1. See N. K. Sandars, “Later Aegean Bronze Swords,” American Journal of Archaeology 67 (1963): 117-53, esp. 136 (from Mycenae); G. M. A. Richter, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1915) 433, no. 1630 (from Gournia); M. Comstock and C. C. Vermeule, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Greenwich, CT, 1971) 392, no. 538 (inv. no. 64.515); J. W. Hayes, Ancient Metal Axes and Other Tools in the Royal Ontario Museum: European and Mediterranean Types (Toronto, 1991) 54-57, nos. 115-20; H. G. Bucholz, Zur Herkunft der kretischen Doppleaxt (Munich, 1959); id., “Doppeläxte und die Frage der Balkan beziehungen des ägäischen Kulturkreises,” in Ancient Bulgaria: Papers Presented to the International Symposium on the Ancient History and Archaeology of Bulgaria, University of Nottingham, 1981, ed. A. G. Poulter (Nottingham, 1983) 43-134; C. Mavriyannaki, “La double hache dans le monde hellénique à l’âge du Bronze,” Revue archéologique (1983): 195-228; and H. Erkanal, Die Äxte und Beile des 2. Jahrtausends in Zentralanatolien, Prähistorische Bronzefunde 9.8 (Munich, 1997).
David G. Mitten
Subjects and Contexts
- Ancient Bronzes
Verification Level
This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu