Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This slender, lancet-type spatula has a tongue that tapers to a gently rounded blunt tip. The juncture of the tongue and shaft is decorated with five raised rings. The shaft tapers on the end opposite the tongue into a sharp point (1).
Greek and Roman medical instruments, many of which were described by ancient authors, have been found, sometimes in sets, throughout the ancient world (2). The instruments could have been used for more than one function, making precise classification difficult in some instances. A spatula is a probe with one flattened, spatula-shaped end and a probe on the other used for stirring and applying medicines, among other uses (3). Spatulae are among the most common instrument types (4).
NOTES:
1. Compare a similar instrument in L. J. Bliquez, Roman Surgical Instruments and Other Minor Objects in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (Mainz 1994) 140, no. 129; and id., “Two Lists of Greek Surgical Instruments and the State of Surgery in Byzantine Times,” Symposium on Byzantine Medicine, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 38 (1984): 187-204, esp. 187-88 and 193, fig. 3.
2. J. S. Milne, Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times (Oxford, 1907) 1-9; and D. Michaelides, “A Roman Surgeon’s Tomb from Nea Paphos,” Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 1984: 315-32, esp. 321-23.
3. Milne 1907 (supra 2) 58-61; Michaelides 1984 (supra 2) 325-26; and R. Jackson and S. La Niece, “A Set of Roman Medical Instruments from Italy,” Britannia 17 (1986): 119-67, esp. 158.
4. Bliquez 1994 (supra 1) 46-47.
David Smart
