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Note on a Bronze Polycandelon found in Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

Extract

The bronze object shown in fig. 1 was, according to the man from whom I got it in 1915, at Granada, found in or close to the ruins supposed to be those of Medina Elvira, near the village of Atarfe. He stated at that time that the person from whom he had bought it claimed to have found it there, a few weeks before my visit; and in 1919 he made a similar statement. This history, in spite of the seeming lack of motive for its falsification, appears at least in certain details to be incorrect, for the author of Iglesias Mozárabes speaks (p. 390) of the piece having appeared for sale at Granada in 1910 and 1914, and suggests the possibility that it had been brought there, to be sold, from some distant point, although he adds that the form of its horseshoe-shaped little arches and the heart-shaped terminals favour the idea of an Andalusian origin. Granada, as a centre of tourist traffic, tends indeed to attract to itself antiquities (real or false) not only from other parts of Spain but even from abroad (e. g. Morocco and Italy); but that an object so rare, comparatively, as the present one should, if coming from abroad, find its way there in preference to some more important centre, seems to me unlikely although not impossible.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1921

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References

page 328 note 1 This may possiblv have given rise to my informant's statement that at least one other polycandelon not in the Museum had been found at Granada.

page 329 note 1 For general information concerning polycandela and the manner of their use, see Lethaby, and Swainson's, The Church of Sancta Sophia, London and New York, 1894, pp. 111seqqGoogle Scholar.

page 330 note 1 Originally published at Granada, in 1888, and illustrated by small sketches of the various objects, including the polycandela, found. It was subsequently reprinted, without illustrations, in the author's Cosas Granadinas de Arte y Arqueología (Granada, N.D.), to the paging of which the references throughout the present ‘Note’ are to be referred.

page 330 note 2 ‘Medina Elvira’, pp. 169, 170.

page 330 note 3 Ibid., p. 171.

page 330 note 4 Ibid., pp. 186, 187.

page 331 note 1 ‘Medina Elvira’, p. 185.

page 331 note 2 J. and Hurtado, M. Oliver, Granada y sus Mcnumentos, Malaga, 1875, p. 432Google Scholar.

page 331 note 3 They correspond to Gómez-Moreno's nos. 44, 42, 45, and 46, on pp. 197, 198.

page 331 note 4 Pl. cl and fig. 215 show three others of the discs.

page 332 note 1 Iglesias Mozárabes, p. 391, calls attention to the similarity between some of these suspensory members and members of the Coptic polycandelon at Cairo or the Calabrian polycandelon, both referred to infra.

page 332 note 2 ‘Medina Elvira’, p. 170.

page 332 note 3 Riaño, J. F., The Industrial Arts in Spain, Lond., 1890, p. 69Google Scholar.

page 334 note 1 Cf. Dalton, O. M., Cat. Early Christian Antiquities … Brit. Mus., Lond., 1901 no. 529, pl. xxvi and p. 104Google Scholar; or Guide to … Early Christian … Antiquities, 1903, pp. 70, 71Google Scholar.

page 334 note 2 La Messe, vol. vi (1888), pl. cdxxxixGoogle Scholar; description on pp. 12, 13.

page 334 note 3 See Wulff's, OskarAltchristliche … Bildwerke, Königliche Museen zu Berlin, part i, Berlin, 1909Google Scholar.

page 335 note 1 Cf. de los Rios, J. Amador' El Arte Latino-Bizantino en España, Madrid, 1861Google Scholar.

page 336 note 1 Lond., 1907, vol. i, pl. xxxii. Cf. Riaño, , op. cit., p. 69Google Scholar; and ‘Medina Elvira’, p. 199 (a sketch of it is given in the original pamphlet).

page 336 note 2 Cf. also British Museum example, no. 496 figured on p. 69 of Guide to … Early Christian … Antiquities.