Events > Bronze
A seminar and discussion about material religion and bronze. This online event will include talks by Prof. Judith Barringer and Katie Manby:
Judith Barringer: ‘Helmets, Horses, and Needles: Bronze Votives in Greece Sanctuaries’
Small bronze objects are among the earliest finds in Early Iron Age Greek sanctuaries; literally thousands of small figurines, fibulae, needles, and the like have been recovered from Olympia and elsewhere. The practice of offering bronze objects continued for centuries although the form of offerings expanded to include armor, weapons, and sculptures of humans and animals, including lifesize and over lifesize objects. This talk will begin with a brief overview of the origin and techniques of bronzeworking in Greece, then will go on to consider the special properties of bronze and its use as votive material in Olympia and other Greek sanctuaries.
Katie Manby: ‘Not all that glitters is gold: Decorating and displaying Roman ‘bronze’ statuettes’
Within the British Museum’s Department of Greece and Rome are over 750 small statuettes of Graeco-Roman deities, representing one of the largest known collections outside of Greece or Italy. Made of ‘bronze’ or copper-alloys, such statuettes would have largely been used within domestic houses in shrines, functioning jointly as religious, domestic and decorative items. They sit on the border between individual pieces of personal religion and mass-produced items with common types and styles across the Roman Empire. This talk will present new research on such statuettes within the British Museum’s collection, exploring how items were manufactured, their display context, and the various ways they were decorated. It combines the more traditional approach to these items as ‘pieces of art’ with new scientific analysis to uncover the true nature of these statuettes, and particularly how they may have looked c.2000 years ago.
Please note that this seminar will take place on Microsoft Teams. It will be possible to join the seminar from a web browser, but you may find that the software works better if you download the Teams App in advance.
Please join the seminar either by clicking the button below or using the following details: Meeting ID: 386 542 221 117 / Passcode: weGpfq