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Laconian lead figurines: mineral extraction and exchange in the Archaic Mediterranean1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

David Gill  and
Michael Vickers
David Gill
Affiliation:
University of Wales Swansea
Michael Vickers
Affiliation:
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
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Abstract

More than 100,000 lead figurines are reported to have been found in the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta. It has been suggested that these mass-produced votives were obtained from locally mined lead. Lead votives in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, were selected as representative of each ‘layer’ from the British excavations of the early twentieth century. Lead isotope analysis of the votives was conducted in the Oxford Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art and demonstrated that the lead was apparently derived from Lavrion as a by-product of silver extraction. There is a possibility that Attic silver, as well as lead, could have been used in Archaic Laconia.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 96 , November 2001 , pp. 229 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 2001

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References

2 A. J. B. Wace, ‘Ch. IX: The lead figurines’, in AO 249–84. See also Fitzhardinge, L. F., The Spartans (London, 1980), 119Google Scholar. For the early classification: A. J. B. Wace, ‘Part III: miscellaneous antiquities’, in TW 228–9; most recently, see Jurriaans-Helle, G., ‘Spartaans, loodzwaar, en charmant’, Vereniging van Vrienden, Allard Pierson Museum Amsterdam, Mededelingenblad, 43 (June, 1988), 30–1Google Scholar (the acquisition of a woman of ‘Lead III’).

3 Wace, A. J. B., ‘The lead figurines’, BSA 15 (1908/1909), 127–41Google Scholar, in A. J. B. Wace, M. S. Thompson and J. P. Droop, ‘Excavations at Sparta, 1909. § 6 The Menelaion’, ibid. 108–57. See also Cavanagh and Laxton 1984, 23.

4 Wace in AO 250. Wace (in AO 249) noted that the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford had acquired lead figurines of this type which had been said to have been found at Corinth; however it is likely that they were in fact found in Laconia.

5 Some figurines found in different sanctuaries seem to have been cast in the same flat moulds: Jurriaans-Helle (n. 2), 31.

6 Wace in AO 250: ‘That they should be so plentiful at Sparta may be due to the fact that the Spartans had good supplies of lead close to hand … it seems … reasonable to suppose that the Spartans had within their boundaries good supplies of lead readily available, and used them to make large quantities of simple small votives which would be inexpensive enough to satisfy the need of every worshipper or pilgrim’. See also Wace in TW 230: ‘Leaden figurines would have been cheap, and as they could not be sold or turned to any useful purpose, there would be great accumulations of them at the shrines’. Lirizitis, V. McGeehan, The Role and Development of Metallurgy in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of Greece (Jonsered, 1996), 387Google Scholar notes some galenite in Laconia.

7 See Conophagos, C. E., Le Laurium antique et la technique grecque de la production de l'argent (Athens, 1980)Google Scholar.

8 e.g. Molleson, T. I., Eldridge, D., and Gale, N., ‘Identification of lead sources by stable isotope ratios and bones and lead from Poundbury Camp, Dorset’, OJA 5 (1986), 249–53Google Scholar, esp. p. 252.

9 AthPol 22.7.

10 Conophagos (n. 7), 60–1.

11 Ibid. 62–5; see also J. N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece (London, 1977), 70.

12 Higgins, R. A., ‘Early Greek jewellery’, BSA 64 (1969), 143–53Google Scholar. For further observations on this type of jewellery: Ogden, J., ‘The jewellery of Dark Age Greece: construction and cultural connections’, in Williams, D. (ed.), The Art of the Greek Goldsmith (London, 1998 14–21Google Scholar.

13 Markoe, G., Phoenician Bronze and Silver Bowls from Cyprus and the Mediterranean (University of California, Classical Studies 26; Berkeley, 1985)Google Scholar.

14 Id., ‘In pursuit of metal: Phoenicians and Greeks in Italy’, in G. Kopcke and I. Tokumaru (eds), Greece Between East and West: 10th–8th Centuries BC: Papers of the Meeting at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, March 15–16th, 1990 (Mainz, 1992), 71.

15 Brill and Wampler, 1967, 69, 75 no. 6.

16 Brill 1970, 149, 162 nos. Pb-654 and Pb-656.

17 The loss of context for so much Archaic bronzework which surfaces on the antiquities market compounds the problem. See C. Chippindale and D. W. J. Gill, ‘Intellectual consequences of contemporary collecting’, in preparation; cf. iid., ‘Material consequences of contemporary collecting’, AJA 104(2000), 463–511.

18 Gale, N. H. and Stos-Gale, Z. A., ‘Cycladic lead and silver metallurgy’, BSA 76 (1981), 169–224Google Scholar; ‘Lead isotope studies in the Aegean (The British Academy Project)’, in Pollard, A. M. (ed1.), New Developments in Archaeological Science, PBA 77 (1992), 63–108Google Scholar. See also Budd, P. et al. , ‘Evaluating lead isotope data: further observations’, Archaeometry, 35 (1993), 3–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a helpful overview: Renfrew, C. and Bahn, P., Archaeology: Theories. Methods and Practice2 (London, 1996), 348–9Google Scholar.

19 Boardman 1963, 1: ‘The main feature in the stratigraphy of the sanctuary was a blanket of sand which covered the whole area, and which, according to the excavators, sealed deposits earlier than about 600 BC’. For further comments on the stratigraphy of the sanctuary by the excavators: Dawkins, R. M., Droop, J. P., and Wace, A. J. B., ‘The excavations of the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia’, JHS 50 (1930), 329 36CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Dawkins, R. M., ‘Artemis Orthia: some additions and a correction’, JHS 50 (1930), 298–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Boardman 1963, 2. For the kylix: Droop, J. P., ‘I. The excavations at Sparta, 1908. § 3. The pottery’, BSA 14 (1907–1908)Google Scholar, pls. 3–4; AO pls. 9–10. The cup has been placed close to ‘the Arkesilas painter’: Shefton, B. B., ‘Three Laconian vase-painters’, BSA 49 (1954), 302 no. 4Google Scholar.

21 Boardman 1963, 2.

22 Boardman's lowering of the chronology has been questioned by Cavanagh and Laxton (1984, 34–5) who prefer to see the transition from Laconian II to Laconian III c. 600/590.

23 Wace in AO 251.

24 Lead VI is dated as late as the mid 3rd c. B C (Wace in AO 252).

25 Cavanagh and Laxton 1984.

26 Ibid. 33.

27 For Wace's estimated numbers of lead figurines see AO 27, 251–2.

28 e.g. Francis, E. D. and Vickers, M.. ‘Greek Geometric pottery at Hama and its implications for Near Eastern chronology’, Levant, 17 (1985), 131–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gill, D. W. J. and Vickers, M., ‘Bocchoris the wise and absolute chronology’, Römische Mitteilungen, 103 (1996), 1–9Google Scholar. For an opposing view: Ridgway, D., ‘The rehabilitation of Bocchoris: notes and queries from Italy’, JEA 85 (1999), 143–52Google Scholar.

29 Cf. AO pls. 180, nos. 15 16, and 185, nos. 25–6.

30 Cf. AO pl. 190, no. 22.

31 For a discussion of the controversy see the special section, ‘Lead isotope analysis and the Mediterranean metals trade’, in JMA 8. 1 (1955), 1–75Google Scholar. This includes P. Budd, A. M. Pollard, B. Scaife, and R. G. Thomas, ‘Oxhide ingots, recycling and the Mediterranean metals trade’ (pp. 1–32, 70–5), and comments by N. H. Gale and Zofia A. Stos-Gale (pp. 33–41), M. Hall (pp. 42–4), Edward V. Sayre, K. Aslihan Yener, and E. C. Joel (pp. 45–53), J. D. Muhly (pp. 54–8), and E. Pernicka (pp. 59–64).

32 Barnes, I. L., Brill, R. H., Deal, E. C., and Pierce, G. V, ‘Lead isotope studies of some of the finds from the Serçe Liman shipwreck’, in Olin, J. S. and Blackman, M. J. (eds), Proceedings of the 24th International Archaeometry Symposium (Washington, DC, 1986), 1–12Google Scholar. We are grateful to Sophie Stós for this reference.

33 Wace in AO 250. See also id., in TW 230: ‘It seems then probable that these leaden figurines were the Spartan substitute for votive offerings in precious metal.’

34 Plato, Alc 122 E.

35 Id., Rep. 548 A.

36 Arist. Pol. 1270a13.

37 Ibid. 127Ib 16–17. Cf. Persaios, Lac. ap. Ath. iv. 140 E–F (SVFi. 454, FGrH 584 F 2), the wealthy (εὔποροι) at Sparta—as opposed to the poor (ἄποροι)—were expected to pay extra for special desserts at dinner.

38 Xen. Lac. 7. 6.

39 Poseidonios ap. Ath. vi. 233 F.

40 Lead figurines similar to those found at Sparta have been discovered at Olbia on the Black Sea: A. Wasowicz and W. Zdrojewska, Monuments en plomb d'Olbia pontique au musée national de Varsovie (Monumenta Antiqua Orae Septentrionalis Ponti Euxini Reperta Locisque Externis Deposita 2; Toruń, 1998).

41 Pind. fr. 124 a (Snell–Maehler).

42 The issues were raised in Vickers, M. and Gill, D., Artful Crafts: Ancient Greek Silverware and Pottery (rev. edn. Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar.

43 Gill, D. W. J., ‘The ivory trade’, in Fitton, J. Lesley (ed.), Ivory in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Period (British Museum Occasional Paper, 85; London, 1992), 233–7Google Scholar.