Sale: CNG 72, Lot: 2732. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 14 June 2006.  Sold For $400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

[Epigraphy] ROMAN. Bronze dedicatory plaque. Circa 2nd-3rd century AD. Length 11cm, height 6.5cm. A thin bronze sheet in the from of a tabula ansata, simple punched frame with crude inscription LIBE / RO PAT (AT ligate) = “Libero Patri” or “For Father Liber (Dionysus)”. Pierced for mounting. Good condition, green patina with sandy encrustation, slightly bent.

The spring Liberalia festival (17 March) was an important rite of passage for a Roman youth. Liber was his patron as he donned the toga of adulthood, and this crude stamped plaque was probably one young man’s offering of thanks to the god for his newly achieved status.