Two bronze lions’-head-shaped handle attachments

Two bronze lions’-head-shaped handle attachments

Two bronze lions’-head-shaped handle attachments, Sardis, Fifth to seventh century, with early seventh century context suggesting sixth to seventh century, bronze/copper alloy, Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum

DESCRIPTION
Two small, nearly identical lion’s heads, with flat backs for attachments to some other object, such as a chest or piece of furniture. The heads are simply rendered, with round ears, long muzzles, and open mouths that may have held ring handles. Rather schematic incised lines and dots indicate mane, muzzle, and jowls; zigzag lines around the backplate.
COMMENTS
This pair comes from a late-occupation level immediately in front of the Synagogue, after the magnificent building had been largely abandoned and the space was being used for other activities, domestic and commercial. It is tempting to see in the lion imagery of Nos. 223-224 a recollection among Roman Sardians of the lions of their Lydian past, but the motif is far too common in the Roman world to draw such conclusions.