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Barnebys HQ
Brahegatan 10
BOX 5038
114 37 Stockholm
All auctions / Asian Art / Phoenician Bronze Scarab Swivel Pendant with Archer
Eastern Mediterranean, Phoenician. A miniature scarab of bronze, its beetle back modeled with a compact head, clypeus, and incised elytra, riding within a looped bronze suspension hoop that lets the amulet swivel to present either face. The flat underside is etched with a bearded man in profile, striding to the right and grasping a bow with arrow, a hunter-warrior figure drawn from the Near Eastern repertoire that Phoenician engravers absorbed and circulated across the Mediterranean. Egyptian in form, Levantine in imagery, the piece served as both personal ornament and functional seal, the intaglio pressed into clay or wax to mark property and authority. Surfaces carry a mottled green and earthen patina. Metal scarabs of this type are far scarcer than the faience and steatite examples that dominate the trade. The scarab reached Phoenicia through centuries of Egyptian contact, but Phoenician workshops at Tyre, Sidon, and later Carthage and Tharros reworked the form to their own taste, replacing hieroglyphic formulae on the base with figural scenes. The striding archer belongs to a wider Near Eastern vocabulary of the royal hunter, a motif with deep Assyrian and Syrian roots in which the bow signals sovereignty and martial competence as much as the chase itself. Mounted in a swivel hoop, such scarabs could be worn on a cord or set into a finger ring, turned face-down as an amulet and face-up when a seal impression was required. Item # 204846
Estimate:$250
To the auctionView all items fromArtemis Fine ArtsorAsian Art
Estimate:
$250
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