Page 236 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

THE ART OF ANCIENT PERSIA
mals confronting one another;20 similar creatures make up the tails and claws of the gold
lioness from Kclermcs, and two lions confront one another on die chape from Mcl-
gunov’s barrow.21
The lynx and the hare of the silver bowl appear quite unexpectedly on another object
from the hoard of Zawiych. It is a crescent-shaped pectoral of gold, and the Scythian
animals arc used to fill the narrow sectors at both ends of the half-moon. Where the
band widens, larger figures can be accommodated, but these arc totally alien to the
Scythian repertoire; they arc peripheral Assyrian, perhaps even provincial Assyrian, as
close - in any case - to Assyrian art as the metal-work of Urartu. There are ibexes flank­
ing a ‘sacred tree*; winged bulls, a griffin, and a sphinx wearing the clodi over its fore­
legs which we have met in the ivories from Khorsabad and Arslan Tash22 (Plate 170c
and p. 193).
In referring, in a first classification, to this pectoral as Assyro-Scythian I evaded the
problem of its origin. It seems hardly possible to assume that the Scythian animals at its
ends were engraved by Assyrian jewellers. Since the Scydiian chieftains were on friendly
terms with the Assyrians, there were exchanges of valuable gifts (the gold bracelet from
Zawiyeh may have been one), and these would supply the Scydiian chief’s armourers
and jewellers with patterns for Assyrian subjects such as appear on the pectoral.23 The
sword-scabbard from the barrow of Melgunov supplies an exact parallel from south
Russia.24 The shape of the scabbard is Iranian, like that of figure 117. Its decoration con­
sists largely of garbled Assyrian motifs, but it includes one characteristic Scydiian theme,
the crouching stag.
Who the jewellers and armourers working for the Scythians were, is another matter.
In Iran one would expect them to employ the native metal-workers whose traditional
skill was high. And at Zawiyeh a bronze horse bit of a type produced in quantities in
western Persia was actually found.25 We are now prepared to survey this native school
of metal-work and to consider its relation with the Scythians.

Ti-ie Luristan Bronzes

During the last twenty years large numbers of bronze objects have been found by the
wild tribesmen of Luristan who did not encourage the competition of qualified ex­
cavators.26 Only one expedition has investigated some tombs in these valleys, and its re­
sults are still unpublished.27 As is usual when a fertile source of antiquities has been
tapped, objects deriving from other places are given the fashionable label by dealers, and
every kind of uncertainty attaches, therefore, to our present discussion. Nevertheless a
distinctive and homogeneous group of works can be isolated, and we shall restrict the
designation ‘Luristan bronzes’ to this group.
Many bronzes which are quite probably found in Luristan must be left out of account.
For in Luristan, as elsewhere in Iran, more or less close imitations of Mesopotamian
articles were made at most periods, and merely peripheral products of this type are not
to be considered here.28 One feels a little more doubtful about a number of buckets with
Assyrian, or at least provincial Assyrian designs (Fig ure 102). Many of these are said to
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