Condition
Intact. Light iridescent weathering in small areas; many pinprick bubbles.
Description
A thick, bent coil of translucent dark green glass. Several elongated bubbles are visible in the mass of the object, produced by the stretching of the originally globular mass of glass from which it was shaped. The ends are bent over and pressed to close the circumference. Uneven tooling marks, adjacent to the seam, had previously been interpreted as snake heads, but quite probably they were simply the result of the forming process of the armlet.
The size and weight of this particular object make it quite improbable that it was actually a jewelry piece.
Comments and Comparanda
The great size and weight of the loop makes its identification as a bracelet dubious. It might had been a weight, almost equal to one Roman and Byzantine pound, i.e., libra, or 325 g (Lafaurie, Jean, 1993. “La livre romaine et ses modifications médiévales, coïncidences pondérales.” Bulletin de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France, 95–100.; Morrisson, Cecile. 2002. “Byzantine Money: Its Production and Circulation.” In Angeliki E. Laiou, The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, 891–944. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection., p. 920-921). On glass bracelets, see cat. 561.
Provenance
By 1974–1988, Erwin Oppenländer, 1901–1988 (Waiblingen, Germany), by inheritance to his son, Gert Oppenländer, 1988; 1988–2003, Gert Oppenländer (Waiblingen, Germany), sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003
Bibliography
Saldern von, Axel, Birgit Nolte, Peter La Baume, and Thea Elisabeth Haevernick. 1974. Gläser der Antike. Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer. Mainz: von Zabern., p. 216, no. 625.
Exhibitions
Gläser der Antike: Sammlung Erwin Oppenländer (Hamburg and Cologne, 1974–1975)