North Syria as a Bronzeworking Centre in the Early First Millennium BC: Luxury Commodities at Home and Abroad

Abstract

This chapter provides six typological categories for bronze objects that may be attributed to North Syrian manufacture in the early first millennium: equestrian ornaments; vessels; plaques; personal ornaments; three-dimensional sculpture; and weights. A number of inverted trapezoidal or triangular metal plaques identified as horses’ frontlets, and spade-shaped plaques identified as horses’ blinkers have been attributed to North Syria. Herrmann has gone so far as to insist that the parallels he observes with reliefs of different North Syrian sites reflect the actual centres of manufacture of specific pieces, and hence to posit multiple centres of production within North Syria for these bronze cauldron fittings. North Syria had to depend for its needs on metal-rich areas outside: upon either sufficient political coercion or material wealth for acquisition, and upon open routes of access for transport.