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Description

  • Medieval low relief
  • White marble
  • 1
  • 22.6
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  • 21.5
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  • 8.4
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  • The fragment has been cut down to its current dimensions, probably for reuse. The carved surfaces are worn, discoloured and scratched. The recessed, negative spaces are filled with pale grey mortar.
  • AE 1168a preserves two distinct interlace motifs: a tri-band guilloche pattern and atri-band series of intertwining circles. These are separated by a deep cut in the stone. On the reverse (AE 1168b), 'beaded' bands create compartments that enclose a seven-petalled flower and a (probably) three-pointed knot (the so-called knot of Solomon).
  • The two patterns on AE 1168a are both common. Guilloche patterns of various kinds (i.e. comprising flat-faced ribbon-like bands, bisected bands, trisected bands) were among the stock patterns of the period. In his discussion of low relief in Liguria, Paolo Verzone points out that the motif was common in Greece and Central Italy already in the seventh century (Verzone 1945, 161). Early examples in Rome include a band below an eighth-century inscription on an architrave from S. Adriano (Stella Arena, et al. 1994, 483–86, IV.2.a–f). Guilloche bands often bordered and delineated patterns within a single slab and filled narrow spaces and interstices. See, for example, several pieces now housed in Rome's Museo dell'Alto Medioevo (Melucco Vaccaro and Paroli 1995, nos 28, 30, 31, 33, 34a, 34b, 35 and 54b) and a well head housed in Berlin's Museum für Byzantinische Kunst (no. 2924).
  • The tri-band guilloche pattern on 1168a is also found on AE 1039, AE 1054, AE 1055a, AE 1055b and AE 1170.

Record Details

  • VM_4157
    • Fill of 4158
    • Megan McNamee