Brooch with a Depiction of Aphrodite and Erotes
This assemblage contained a round silver brooch with a depiction in low relief of a bust of Aphrodite en face with two small figures of Erotes at her sides, by her right and left shoulder. The hair of the goddess is arranged at the dges of her face in a roll with diagonal notches in it conveying her tresses. On her head there is a cloak, the edges of which come down on to her shoulders. On her neck there is a necklace with pendants. The right arm of the figure on which a bracelet has been depicted is held close up against her chest. To the right of the lower edge of the figure’s bust and arranged diagonally there is a straight staff also bearing diagonal notches. Along the edge of the brooch ribbed wire has been soldered on and its ends have been joined together.
A sprung fibula of a fiddle bow-shaped type has been welded on to the reverse, and a bronze coin has stuck on to it at the side. The plate of the brooch has been stamped from a thin sheet of silver. A depiction of Aphrodite and Erotes executed on a disc, is an example of the variant which had emerged in the North Pontic region in the 1st century AD, and was particularly typical for this region: the goddess has been drawn with her right hand pressed up against her chest and holding a staff or sceptre in her left hand, which is arranged diagonally and decorated with slanting notches (another iconographic type also existed, in which the goddess was not holding a staff and which can be traced back to the iconography of the Late Hellenistic period).
The brooch from Artezian was most likely produced in a Bosporan jewellery workshop: it is possible that it had been made with the help of the same stamp used for the brooch from the burials in the Gorgippia necropolis dating from between the middle of the 1st century AD and the beginning of the 2nd century.
4.33 × 4.54 cm. The thickness of the plate was 0.5 mm. Maximum height of the relief –
6 mm. Wire measuring 1.6 mm. Fibula: length – 30.1 mm, the width of the spring 8.3 mm.
Quantity
1
Hoard
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This object
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