ICOBASE

Object identity: IC010810-24

Museum identity: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Burgon archive No. 200. (Thomas Burgon (b. 1787 d. 1858 age 71) was a merchant who traded between London, Greece, and Turkey, and Smyrna in particular. He was also a connoisseur of Greek antiquities. During his lifetime he collected and documented over 300 artifacts, many of which are now in the British Museum. To document his collection he created watercolour paintings of his collections, and these have ended up in the Ashmolean Museum. While in Smyrna Burgon married Catherine Marguerite de Cramer. They had six children, one of whom was the notable fundamentalist bible scholar and Dean of Chichester, John William Burgon. Unfortunately Thomas Burgon was unable to make an adequate living as a merchant and chose instead to become a member of the coin department at the British Museum. He offered his collection of antiquities to the museum in 1842. He is buried in Holywell cemetery, Oxford, where most of his family are also buried.

Origin: Greece, Athens, Lekythos.

Period: 500 BC

IC010810-24

Object identity: Ic010810-23

Museum identity: Ashmolean,museum, Oxford. Burgon archive N0.195d. (Thomas Burgon (b. 1787 d. 1858 age 71) was a merchant who traded between London, Greece, and Turkey, and Smyrna in particular. He was also a connoisseur of Greek antiquities. During his lifetime he collected and documented over 300 artifacts, many of which are now in the British Museum. To document his collection he created watercolour paintings of his collections, and these have ended up in the Ashmolean Museum. While in Smyrna Burgon married Catherine Marguerite de Cramer. They had six children, one of whom was the notable fundamentalist bible scholar and Dean of Chichester, John William Burgon. Unfortunately Thomas Burgon was unable to make an adequate living as a merchant and chose instead to become a member of the coin department at the British Museum. He offered his collection of antiquities to the museum in 1842. He is buried in Holywell cemetery, Oxford, where most of his family are also buried.

Origin: Greece, Athens, Lekythos.

Period: 500 BC

Curatorial notes: This zoomorphic pig rattle is surprisingly similar to similar types found in Ur some 2000 years before.

IC010810-23

Object identity: IC010810-13

Museum identity: Ashmolean museum, Oxford: AN1965.280

Object: Clay rattle in the shape of a bird

Period: Bronze Age: Early Bronze Age IV 2300 – 2000 BC

Dimensions: H: 5.4cm. W: 2.4cm.

Region: Turkey

Description: handmodelled; baked; greenish-buff fabric; chipped; concave pedestal base to be free-standing; stylized head and tail; incised lines down its back and across the sides; perhaps a rattle. A pebble is trapped in the rear aperture.

Reference: ANET-29Bronze2Syr-Catalogue-1.

IC010810-13

Object identity: IC010810-9

Museum identity: Ashmolean museum, Oxford: AN1923.379

Object: Rattle made of clay in the shape of a pig with small clay balls inside.

Period: Bronze Age: Akkadian to Old Babylonian Period: 200 – 1600 BC

Dimensions: H: 5.4cm. L: 8.1cm.

Region: Sumer

Description: handmodelled; buff fabric; snout damaged; fully rounded body with pinched ears, stubby legs and tail; incised chevrons on the sides of the body; appliqué blob eyes (one missing).

Reference: ANET-23Bronze1MesII-Catalogue-2.

IC010810-9

Object identity: IC010810-8

Museum identity: Ashmolean museum, Oxford: AN1923.378

Object: Rattle in the shape of a pig made of clay with clay balls inside.

Period: Bronze Age: Akkadian to Old Babylonian Period; 200 to 1600 BC

Dimensions: H: 8cm. L: 13cm.

Region: Sumer

Description: handmodelled; yellowish-buff fabric; ears damaged, front legs repaired; traces of brown paint(?); high dorsal crest.

Reference: ANET-23Bronze1MesII-Catalogue-2.

IC010810-8

Object identity: IC010810-7

Museum identity: Terracotta: AN1935.780

Location: Ashmolean museum, Oxford

Object: Bird

Period: Bronze Age: Akkadian to Old Babylonian Period 2000 BC to 1600 BC

Dimensions: H: 7cm. L: 7.5cm.

Region: Sumer

Description: handmodelled; baked; reddish-buff fabric; head missing (or perhaps never added); hollow with a rattle inside.

Reference: ANET-23Bronze1MesII-Catalogue-2.

IC010810-7

Object identity: IC250710-2

Museum identity: British museum: BM ME 128620

Origin: Tepe Giyan, Iran

Period: 2000 BC

Description:  Musical scene with hand clapping, rattles, vertical harp and a square timbrel.

Curatorial note: a rare occurrence of the usage of a rattles.

IC250710-2

Object identity: IC240710-3

Museum identity: University museum, Philadelphia. Field number: U.12435

Origin: Ur. Death pit, PG/1332.

Period: 3000

Description: One register made of shell and lapis lazuli taken from a series of two, on above the other, being ornaments of the from of a zoomorphic lyre.

Curatorial notes: It is impossible to say with certainty that the objects held by both subjects are rattles. However, of all known object collected from the multiple excavations at the cemetery of Ur, only rattles fit with the representation.

IC240710-3

Object identity: IC230710-7

Museum identity: British museum: BMME 116706; 1925,0110.4

Object type: Rattle

Medium: clay

Description: Fired clay zoomorphic rattle; in the form of a pig with incised lines on back representing its hair, modelled features with small pellets applied to represent the eyes; circular hole in the centre of its belly.

Measurements: Length: 8.2 centimetres; Height: 5.3 centimetres; Width: 5.9 centimetres; Weight: 114 grammes

Techniques: modelled;  incise: fired;  applied.

Origin: Southern Iraq

Period: 2000BC-1000BC

Culture: Bronze Age

Subject: mammal

Acquisition date: 1925

Acquisition name: Purchased from Maj V E Mocatta

Bibliography: Dumbrill, Richard Jean, Idiophones of the Ancient Near East in the Collections of the British Museum, [United Kingdom], 2007;  pp.15, 26

ic230710-7