Relief Stamp with Ram's Head

This irregular, roughly trapezoidal stamp with rounded corners portrays a ram’s head in high relief, facing left. There is a groove paralleling the break or cut at the right end of the image. The ram’s horn is smooth except for a central groove paralleling its curve. The tip of the ear overlaps the horn slightly. The reverse is flat, except for a diagonal furrow across the right side of the surface. It bounds a slightly raised lump-shaped feature that appears to have been formed in casting the object. This ram’s head in relief appears to have been used for making halves of finials for animal-headed bracelets. These either could have been punched out of sheet metal, or may have been used to form clay molds for casting halves of such objects (1). The modeling of the ram’s head finds numerous parallels in depictions of rams on Greek bronze attachments in the second half of the fifth century BCE; however, an exact parallel has not yet been identified. This stamp could have been made and used anywhere on the Greek mainland, Aegean Islands, or East Greek coastal area. It may reflect Achaemenid influence. NOTES: 1. A similar finial punch depicting a calf’s head facing right appears in M. Y. Treister, Hammering Techniques in Greek and Roman Jewellery and Toreutics, Colloquia Pontica 8 (Leiden, 2001) 18 and 276, figs. 27-28 and 78.2. The first, in the British Museum, London, inv. no. 128794, is from Kasvin, Iran. The second, a larger stamp, in the Museo Nazionale della Siritide, Policoro, inv. no. 205570, is from Tomb 68 at Heraklea, Lucania. David G. Mitten