Handle Ornamented with Head or Mask Attachment Plate

The face on the attachment plate for this handle is obscured by heavy corrosion and accretions, but it seems to depict an older satyr with a long curling beard (1). The left ear, large and curving, is visible, while the right is obscured or partially missing. The underside of the attachment plate is slightly concave. Above the head there is a section of curvilinear decoration with a volute on both sides and a raised horizontal band above. The gripping portion of the handle is flat on the underside, rhomboidal in section, and curves outward slightly until it reaches the portion that connected with the vessel’s rim, which it meets at almost a right angle. The upper vessel attachment plate is also flat on the underside, where it would have been in contact with the rim. It has a curving boomerang shape, with two small volutes curving forward on the front. The top is decorated with a molded protrusion. NOTES: 1. A handle with a similar attachment plate, although more elaborate than the Harvard example, is published in M. P. Bini, G. Caramella, and S. Buccioli, I bronzi etruschi e romani, Materiali del Museo archeologico nazionale di Tarquinia 13 (Rome, 1995) 49-50, no. 87, pl. 33.3.a-d (dated to the end of the third century BCE). Lisa M. Anderson