Woman's Belt Hanger (Zone) (c. 725–675 BCE): Art, History and Details

Woman's Belt Hanger (Zone) (c. 725–675 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The shape and punched and incised decoration of this northern Greek triangular-shaped zone (woman’s belt hanger) may symbolize a woman’s procreative anatomy, with groups of small circles flanking a large central radiating circle. An ornament of this type was found in a woman’s grave positioned directly over the pelvic bone, and could have been worn suspended from or attached to a belt made of less durable materials.

Object facts

• Title: Woman's Belt Hanger (Zone)
• Date: c. 725–675 BCE
• Culture: Greece, Geometric period
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 32.5 cm (12 13/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 2006.5

A detail from the museum

Ancient bronze objects often have a greenish hue due to a chemical reaction that creates this surface patina.

Collection credit

The Jane B. Tripp Charitable Lead Annuity Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• Across Time: Works of Sculpture, Painting, Mosaic and Glass, 5000 BC - AD 1200. New York: Fortuna Fine Arts, Ltd, 2005.
• Sims, Lowery Stokes. The persistence of geometry: form, content, and culture in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006.
• Bennett, Michael. "An Erotic Talisman." The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine: Cleveland Art (July/August 2010).

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.