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Bracelet Bell

1st century CE
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 684
Instruments and musical ideas were shared, exploited, and adapted throughout the Mediterranean world and West Asia. While one culture preferred harps, another emphasized the virtues of the lyre. Instruments could symbolize or personify gods. In Greece, lyres were associated with Apollo, while the aulos (Roman: tibia), a wind instrument, was emblematic of Dionysus, god of wine and theater, and deemed less prestigious. Percussion instruments like cymbals, clappers, and frame drums provided rhythmic emphasis for dance, rituals, recitation, and melodic instruments.

Romans used bells in ritual and secular contexts. Examples like this one may have hung from the necks of small animals, were worn as talismans or as anklets by servants.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Bracelet Bell
  • Date: 1st century CE
  • Geography: Rome, Italy
  • Culture: Italian (Ancient Roman)
  • Medium: Bronze.
  • Dimensions: Including ring: 4 7/8 × 3 1/2 × 1 9/16 in. (12.4 × 8.9 × 4 cm)
    Diameter (Of ring): 1 × 3 1/2 in. (2.5 × 8.9 cm)
    Of bell alone: 2 1/4 × 1 in. (5.7 × 2.5 cm)
  • Classification: Idiophone-Struck-bell-clapper
  • Credit Line: The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889
  • Object Number: 89.4.1614
  • Curatorial Department: Musical Instruments

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