Jug Handle, Terminating in a Lotus Bud

This handle belonged to a rather squat vessel with a bulbous body and wide, probably circular, mouth. An acanthus tendril with two symmetrical leaves shoots downward from a wide fillet at the base of the handle. A central spike-shaped leaf fills the space between these leaves. From this base two larger leaves, whose inner details are mostly obscured, curve outward to form the base of the attachment. Because no rivets or holes are visible, the handle must have been attached to the vessel by solder. The underside of the handle and its widening extension to the mouth of the vessel are flat. The upper part of the handle consists of a central, raised spool-like attachment with a depressed center. This attachment is flanked on either side by stylized duck heads. The duck heads emerge from two leaf-like forms that end in rounded knobs. The naturalistic forms of the acanthus leaves, the duck heads, and the presence of the spool suggest a date for this handle somewhere between 350 and 250 BCE. Parallels for such handles occur on bronze vessels in Macedonian tombs of the second half of the fourth and first half of the third centuries BCE and in the Roman period (1). NOTES: 1. Compare Roman examples in S. Boucher, Vienne: Bronzes antiques, Inventaire des collections publiques françaises 17 (Paris, 1971) 146, no. 286; and M. P. Bini, G. Caramella, and S. Buccioli, I bronzi etruschi e romani, Materiali del Museo archeologico nazionale di Tarquinia 13 (Rome, 1995) 54, no. 101, pl. 36.2.a-b. David G. Mitten