Empress Bust Weight, Steelyard, and Collar with Chains

Empress Bust Weight, Steelyard, and Collar with Chains

Empress Bust Weight, Steelyard, and Collar with Chains, 5th-7th century, Mixed copper alloy; lead and iron fill in bust,

Dimensions:

A. weight: 13.6 x 6 x 4.7 cm (5 3/8 x 2 3/8 x 1 7/8 in.)
1441 g
B. chains and hooks: 44 x 5.7 cm (17 5/16 x 2 1/4 in.)
C. crossbeam with hooks: 39.2 x 1 cm (15 7/16 x 3/8 in.)

This fifth- to seventh-century steelyard weight in the shape of an empress represents the most common type of weight used with early Byzantine steelyard scales (1). Earlier scholarship proposed that each weight represented a specific Byzantine empress, but that theory has been overturned in favor of an interpretation of the crowned women as a generic imperial type, perhaps linked to the symbolism of official personifications. The crude outline of the bulky crown is similar to headgear worn by early Byzantine empresses depicted on consular diptychs and marble statuary. She wears a tunic covered by a heavy cloak with deeply grooved folds. Her right hand rests on the edge of the cloak, while her left hand clutches an object variously identified as a scroll or a mappa.

As is typical of weights from this time, the bronze is crudely modeled with no modeling on the reverse. This figure was hollow cast with its surface roughly modeled in wax, and then its interior was filled with lead. An iron pin is visible in the base.

The steelyard still has two copper alloy chains terminating in large hooks. These hooks extend from a loop with a swiveling mechanism that slides over the steelyard’s crossbeam. The crossbeam has three incised scales and three suspension points (two of which still have hooks). The three sides would have corresponded to three distinct ranges of measurement. The scale corresponding to the innermost suspension point is subdivided into 12 sections, each between 1.8 and 2 cm long and inscribed with three dots. The middle scale is more or less regularly subdivided into 25 sections, each between 0.7 cm and 1 cm long. Most of these sections (or sometimes a larger, double section) are inscribed with three dots. The border between the eleventh and twelfth section is marked by the letter K; the border between the twenty-first and twenty-second by V or Λ (Greek upsilon or lambda). The letters represented Greek numerals. The scale corresponding to the outermost suspension point consists of irregular incisions at the border (c. 0.3 cm distance from each other), with the following Greek letters inscribed with punched dots: Λ E M E N E Χ E O E P̣ E (the epsilons are inscribed in reverse; the reading of the penultimate letter is uncertain). The punched dot style of inscription is used on weight crossbeams even in the Roman period (2). It is unusual to have a weight preserved with its crossbeam, if in fact this group belonged together in antiquity; the crossbeam’s markings are exceptionally well preserved.

Steelyards were commonly used throughout the ancient Mediterranean. These crossbeams would have a weight, usually in the form of a person or deity, that slid along the bar of the scale to measure bulk goods (3). Not surprisingly, many of the Late Roman and Byzantine examples with known findspots have been found along a coast or in shipwrecks, reflecting their commercial utility. The standard term in English, “steelyard,” is a bit misleading, deriving from the use of similar scales in the area on the north bank of the Thames, London, where steel merchants clustered until 1597. In the Roman period, a wide range of figures was represented on the weights, reflecting the diversity of forms of Roman small bronzes in general. By the fourth to fifth century CE, this multiplicity had narrowed and almost all steelyards used weights represented a generic empress type (like this example) or the goddess Athena (Minerva) (4). Although many late examples have been dated generally to the Late Roman period, the most firmly dated example is from the seventh-century shipwreck of Yassi Ada, off the coast of modern Turkey (5). The holdings of the Harvard Art Museums represent the lively eclecticism of this category of bronze, including busts of an empress type, a Minerva, an emperor and an ambiguous nude.

The basic shape of the bust weights was probably created from the lost-wax process, with later refinements added as the materials cooled. The hollow core was filled with lead to achieve the required weight, and a thin bronze sheet on the bottom capped the lead filling. Variations appear in the manufacture of different categories of the weights. The upper loop, with which the figure would be attached to the upper scale, was aligned in two different directions: the loop on the empress bust weights ran front-to-back, while the Minerva bust weights, in contrast, had a top loop that presents its circular face to the viewer. Furthermore, the Minerva weights possess rectangular socles, and the empress weights have oval socles.

https://iiif.harvardartmuseums.org/manifests/object/320164