For whom did the bell toll in ancient Greece? Archaic and Classical Greek bells at Sparta and beyond

Abstract

Bells of fairly small size were known across ancient Greece from the Archaic period onwards, both in bronze and terracotta. They are found in sanctuaries, graves and, more rarely, in houses, and served a variety of purposes, both practical and more abstract, in daily life and ritual, and in both male and female contexts. Archaeological, iconographical and literary sources attest to their use as votive offerings in ritual and funerary contexts, as signalling instruments for town-guards, as amulets for children and women as well as, in South Italy, in a Dionysiac context. A use as animal (notably horse) bells, however, was not widespread before the later Roman period. The bells' origins lie in the ancient Near East and Caucasian area, from where they found their way especially to Archaic Samos and Cyprus and later to mainland Greece. Here, the largest known find complex of bronze and terracotta bells, mostly of Classical date, comes from the old British excavations in the sanctuary of Athena on the Spartan acropolis and is published here for the first time. Spartan bells are distinctive in shape yet related particularly to other Lakonian and Boiotian bells as well as earlier bells from Samos. At Sparta, as elsewhere, the connotation of the bells' bronze sound as magical, protective, purificatory and apotropaic was central to their use, although specific functions varied according to place, time, and occasion.