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Barnebys HQ
Brahegatan 10
BOX 5038
114 37 Stockholm
All auctions / Sculptures / Phrygian Bronze Bow Fibula
Anatolia, Turkey, Phrygian. A compact cast bronze fibula of the Anatolian arched-bow type, its semicircular bow swelling into a thick, collared arc articulated by fine encircling ribs at either shoulder. One terminal resolves into a tight coiled spring from which the slender pin springs, while the opposite end rises into a small stepped catchplate that once secured the pin's point. Surfaces carry a warm, burnished brown patina with pale earthen deposits caught in the moldings. Fibulae of this class functioned as garment fasteners, pinning the heavy woolen mantles worn across the Phrygian highlands, and their profiles were sufficiently standardized that archaeologists use bow shape and knob spacing as chronological markers. Small in scale but complete in mechanism, the piece preserves the elegant economy of an object designed to be worn daily rather than admired. The fibula is one of the signature artifacts of Iron Age Anatolia. Excavations at Gordion, the Phrygian capital on the Sangarius River, recovered them by the hundreds, including from the great tumulus long associated with the dynasty of Midas, where bronze fibulae were deposited in quantity alongside cauldrons and vessels. Oscar Muscarella's typology of these brooches, built on the Gordion material, remains the standard framework: variations in the bow's curvature, the number and profile of its knobs or moldings, and the form of the catchplate distinguish groups that spread west into Greece and east across the Assyrian frontier. Greek writers later remembered the safety-pin brooch as a foreign fashion, and the Anatolian workshops were among its most inventive producers. Item # 204604
Estimate:$450
To the auctionView all items fromArtemis Fine ArtsorSculptures
Estimate:
$450
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