‘Puzzling’ bronze discs adorned with lion heads discovered in Roman-era grave
Archaeologists in Israel discovered four “unique” bronze artefacts, adorned with elaborate 3D heads, which are around 1,900 years old.
The researchers discovered the rare bronze discs during an excavation of backup led by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) on a site called Khirbat Ibreika – located in the center of the country – before the establishment of a railway, according to a study published in the latest issue of the IAA Official Journal, ‘Atiqot.
The excavations, which took place in 2018, revealed eight tombs bordered by stone in the Roman era. Archaeologists found the bronze discs in an ordered battery at the southern end of one of the tombs, dating from the first or second century AD
In addition to the discs, archaeologists found four handles in the shape of a bronze ring which were probably once attached to the top of the lions heads. This discovery is unusual because if similar bronze discs with reliefs of the lion’s head were found in the Roman world, the ring handles were generally attached by the mouth.
“It is a unique and rare set of discoveries”, ” Elie Haddad And Elisheva ZwiebelArchaeologists who directed the Ibreika Khirbat excavation in the name of AIA and the authors of the study, said in a press release.
The researchers also identified a large iron nail preserved with traces of wood, indicating the existence of a wooden coffin which did not survive, according to the report.
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Although the discs have probably played a decorative role, the researchers propose that bronze objects and attached rings also served as handles, allowing people to wear the coffin or lower it in the grave. They also suggest that it would have been possible to insert two long wooden stems through the rings, which facilitates the task of transporting the coffin.
But the authors recognize that an aspect of this assumption remains confusing. “If the discs were coffin handles, why were they stacked in what seems to have been a deliberate battery on one side of the tomb? Although it could be stated that they fell from the wooden coffin during the burial ceremony, it seems unreasonable that the four discs fell on the same side,” wrote the researchers in the study.
This raises the possibility that the artifacts have a particular symbolic or ritual meaning in their open.
THE lion was an important symbol through antiquity in various cultures and civilizations, the animal appearing frequently in ancient art. He symbolized strength, courage and nobility, among other features.
In the Greco-Roman world, the lions were known as the fountains, doors, palaces, cemeteries and temples, according to the study. In some cases, these animals were also considered protectors of the dead, according to A 2022 paper Discuss the handles of a lion’s head of the Roman era resembling the discoveries of Khirbat Ibreika.
Given this symbolism, the researchers propose that the motifs of the lion found in the tomb of Khirbat Ibreika can signify the high rank or social position of the deceased.
It is also possible, they noted, that the ring manages above the heads of the Lions can represent the “zodiac wheel, the wheel of life”, they wrote in the study.
This interpretation was based on certain potential representations of the Aion – a Hellenistic deity associated with the cyclic nature of existence and the zodiac – in ancient art. Some researchers associate a bare figure, with a human body and with a lion head intertwined by a snake (or snakes) with Aion. But this representation is not its classic representation – appearing mainly in the old syncretic traditions – and remains subject to a debate.
