Lanx

A lanx (Latin for dish) was a large ancient Roman serving platter.[2] Particularly ornamented ones were used to make offerings or sacrifices.[3] Indeed, the silver Corbridge Lanx,[4] the second discovered in Britain, has depicted on it a lanx itself, set beside various gods and goddesses - Minerva, Diana, Juno, Vesta and Apollo.[5]

The Corbridge Lanx (British Museum)[1]

Positioned atop an altar, the lanx is heaped with an offering "of a globular form". Fruit as well as sheep parts and "other small victims" were likely used. However, the exact meaning in this representation has not been determined.[6][7] The inscription on the now lost Risley Park Lanx, which was the first lanx discovered in Britain indicated that it was "church plate."[8]

Notes

1. British Museum Highlights
2. Lysons, Daniel & Lysons, Samuel. "Antiquities: British and Roman", Magna Britannia vol 5, 1817, pp. CCIII-CCXVIII. Accessed November 26, 2007.
3. Dunlop, John Colin. History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Periods to the Augustan Age' Eve Littel, New York: 1827, p233.
4. Discovered in 1735 the Corbridge Lanx was owned by the Duke of Northumberland, and purchased by the British Museumin 1993. . Multiple images here eight and here twelve.
5. Note divinities otherwise characterised as the Greek equivalents, see: Nicholson, Oliver. "The Corbridge Lanx and the Emperor Julian", Britannia, Vol. 26, 1995, p312
6. Hodgson cited in Bruce, John Collingwood. The Roman wall: a historical, topographical and descriptive account of the Barrier of the Lower Isthmus extending from the Tyne to the Solway., London: John Russell Smith, 1851: p335-7; plate p335.
7. Nicholson,Oliver. "The Corbridge Lanx and the Emperor Julian", Britannia, Vol. 26, 1995, p312
8. Johns, Catherine & Painter, Kenneth. "The Risley Park Lanx 'rediscovered'(abstract)", Minerva 2(6) 1991, 6–13.

Further reading

• Weitzmann, Kurt, ed., Age of spirituality: late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century, nos. 110, 126 & 144, 1979, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, ISBN 9780870991790; full text available online from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries