ICONEA DATABASE OF MIDDLE AND NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOMUSICOLOGY
Object identity: IC090810-3
Museum identity: British museum N.190
Description: small bronze horse collar bell.
Origin: Assyrian, Nimrud
Period: 800 BC
Measurements: Height: 5.08cm; diameter: 2.85; weight: 83gm.
IC090810-3
Object identity: IC090810-1
Museum identity: British museum: N.155
Description: Bronze bell from horse collar, with rounded sides; flange around base and ring holder at the top cast in one piece with the bell. The clapper does not survive, but there are traces of an iron fixture inside the bell at the top centre.
Measurements: Height: 8.3cm; Diametre: 6.0; Weight: 280.5 gm.
Origin: Assyrian, Nimrud; Northwest Palace, [S] Room AB?
Excavated by: Sir Austen Henry Layard around 1855. (archaeologist; politician/statesman; British; Male; 1817 – 1894) Celebrated archaeologist whose excavations greatly increased knowledge of the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia; ‘discoverer’ of Nineveh and Nimrud in the late 1840s/early 1850s. Born Paris. Travelled to Egypt at the age of 22; acquired an interest in the fine arts in Italy; acquired some knowledge of Arabic and Persian languages, and then travelled overland to Ceylon. Following a suggestion made by the Royal Geographical Society he lived among the Bakhtiari tribes of western Iran in 1840-42, publishing his account in ‘Early Adventures’. He first visited Mesopotamia in 1841. He excavated most extensively at Nineveh and Nimrud in Assyria. He conducted two lengthy seasons of excavations in Assyria, from November 1845-Juner 1847 and from October 1849-April 1851. He first visited Khorsabad in August 1846 and returned to excavate there in November 1849. After his early archaeological career he turned to politics, becoming MP for Aylesbury; Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 1861-1866; British Ambassador to Spain, 1869-1877; Ambassador in Turkey, 1877-1881. He retired to live in Venice, developed an important collection of paintings (bequeathed to the National Gallery) and became a patron of the glass industry at Murano. His portrait is held by the Department of the Middle East in The British Museum, and his extensive papers, now mostly in the British Library, were bequeathed to the British Museum by his widow, Enid, in 1912. His memorial plaque is in St Margaret’s church, Westminster. Author of: “A Description of the Province of Khuzistan”, ‘Journal of the Royal Geographical Society’, 16 (1846), pp. 1-105; ‘Nineveh and its Remains’ (London: John Murray 1849); ‘The Monuments of Nineveh’ (London: John Murray 1853); ‘A Second Series of the Monuments of Nineveh’ (London: John Murray 1853); ‘Early adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia’ (London: John Murray 1887, abridged 1894).
Exhibition History: 2008-2009 21 Sept-4 Jan, Boston, MFA, ‘Art and Empire’; 2007 2 Apr-30 Sept, Alicante, MARQ Museum, ‘Art and Empire’; 2006 1 Jul-7 Oct, Shanghai Museum, ‘Art and Empire’
Bibliographic reference: Curtis J E & Reade J E 1995a 160; Curtis J E & Reade J E 1994a 160; Dumbrill, R.J., The Idiophones of the Ancient Near East in the Collections of the British Museum.
IC090810-1
Object identity: IC060810-4
Museum identity: Unknown. in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy, Collezione Farnese.
Origin: Roman
Period: 100 BC / 100 AD
Curatorial notes: It will be interesting to note that collar bells on horses and other equidae might have been a fashion imported to Italy during the Orientalising Period on account of the wide-spread practice in Assyrian.
IC060810-4
Object identity: IC270719-13
Description: Drawing of a bell at the British museum: N.173, by Richard Dumbrill, 2007.
IC270710-13
Object identity: IC270710-12
Description: Drawing of a bell: N.188 from the British museum by Richard Dumbrill in 2007
IC270710-12
Object identity: IC270710-11
Description: Drawing of bell form The British museum: N.155, by Richard Dumbrill in 2007
IC270710-11
Object identity: IC190710:7
Museum identity: British Museum: 1856,0903.1522
Subject: musician/boxing/boxer
Acquisition date: 1856
Excavated by: William Kennett Loftus (Geologist and archaeologist from Newcastle, who was appointed to the Turco-Persian Frontier Commission in 1849, for which he served until 1852 under the orders of Colonel (later Major-General) Sir William Fenwick Williams (1800-1883), who later became renowned as “the hero of Kars”. Loftus excavated at Susa (1850/51), Nineveh (May 1854-March 1855), Uruk/Warka (January-February 1850, January-April 1854), Jidr (1854, Pahlavi inscribed bricks), Khan-i Kyaya (1854; Pahlavi inscribed bricks) and other sites in Babylonia. Visited a number of sites including Ur (1850), Fara (1854; acquired an Egyptian amulet), Nippur (second time in 1854), Zibliyat (1854). His travels in Iran included visits to Persepolis and Taq-i Bustan (with Joseph Olguin (q.v.) in summer 1850), at both of which sites he left his name as a graffito. In 1858 Loftus resumed excavations in Mesopotamia on behalf of the Assyrian Excavation Fund. The British Museum holds collections of antiquities from these different excavations although there has been some confusion in the 19th century as to which season and site some of them derived. Author of: “Notes of a journey from Baghdad to Busrah, with descriptions of several Chaldaean remains”, ‘Journal of the Royal Geographic Society’ 26 (1856), pp. 131-53; “On the excavations undertaken at the ruins of Susa in 1851-2″, ‘Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature’, V (1856/57), pp. 422-53; ‘Travels and researches in Chaldaea and Susiana’ (London 1857).
Description: Baked clay plaque of two boxers fighting, while musicians play; a sitting figure on the right plays a kettle-drum and a standing figure on the right beats clappers together.
Dimensions: Height: 7 centimetres; Width: 11.5 centimetres
This plaque of baked clay was excavated at Senkereh. It is Old Babylonian, about 2000 to 1750 BC.
The scene shows two boxers who seem to be stimulated by the beating of the kettle-drum and possibly clappers, rattles, cymbals or perhaps bells.
The kettle-drum is mounted on a pedestal which is consistent with the practice as late as in the Seleucid period. It is interesting to note that the player of idiophones is sitting on a stool.
This is a unique instance for such a scene.
Click on this link for access to the British Museum database for this object
Object identity: IC1900710:4
Museum identity: British Museum: 1884,0714.11; PRN:WCO30241
Location: The British Museum
Medium: copper alloy, hemishpherical with hanging ring
Excavation site: Byblos, Phoenician archaic
Measurements: diameter: 5.0 centimetres; height: 5.1 centimetres; thickness: 0.3 centimetres; weight: 77.5 grammes
Acquired in: 1884
Acquired from: Rev Greville John Chester
Analysed by McKerrel 1972/72
Bibliography: Dumbrill, R.J. (2008) The Idiophones of the British Museum in the Collections of the British Museum
IC1900710:4
Object identity: IC190710:5
Museum identity: British Museum: 1930,0508.128; PRN:WCO21869; Old PRN: WCO1715; Register: 29: 62
Location: The British Museum
Measurements: height: 30 millimetres; diameter: 23 millimetres; weight: 14 grammes
Excavated by: Reginal Campbell Thompson and acquired in 1930
Site of excavation: Kouyunjik (Niniveh)
Period: First millennium BC
Bibliography: Spear, N., 1978a, fig. 115; Dumbrill, R.J. (2008) The Idiophones of the British Museum in the Collections of the British Museum, p. 85
IC190710:5
Object identity: IC190710:6
Museum identity: British Museum: 1883,0118.668; PRN:WCO21787; Old PRN: WCO1630
Location: The British Museum
Measurements: 37 millimetres; diameter: 45 millimetres; weight: 49 grammes
Excavated by: Hormuzd Rassam and acquired in 1883
Site of excavation: Kouyunjik (Niniveh)
Rassam inventory no. 99
Bibliography: Dumbrill, R.J. (2008) The Idiophones of the British Museum in the Collections of the British Museum
IC190710:6
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