Page 237 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

X*ART TWO :
the PERI1>HERAL regions

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Figure 102. Two bronze buckets, From Luristan

come from Luristan, and one was found near Kermanshah.29 The thick-set, hirsute
hunters can be matched by Elamites depicted in Assurbanipars reliefs, and the ostriches
and female sphinxes occur on Assyrian seals of the eighth century. Yet at least one design
(Figure 102a) seems un-Assyrian.30
Some engraved bronze belts, once assigned to the hoard of Zawiyeh, are now known
to come from Luristan.31 They resemble pins with flat round heads found in that region
(Figure 103),32 engraved with crude but lively designs in which Mesopotamian themes
are used as a starting-point for ornamental compositions. In this respect, and in some odd
schemes, such as the fish-tail-like excrescence on the back of the goat in figure 103, they
resemble the horse bits (Figure 104D), pole-tops, and other heavy castings for which I
reserve the designation Luristan bronzes. Some of the phis may be a little later in date,33
but the bosses with the lion-mask of these pins show nevertheless their close affinity with
the weapons of figures 106 and 107.
The Luristan bronzes, in the narrow sense of the term, are without parallel hi either
Mesopotamia or Persia. They correspond to what has been described34 as ‘the nomad s
gear’. Of this it is said: ‘By their nature they must have everything portable, and it is to
these portable tilings that they applied their art: daggers, with special sheaths, axes, bow-
cases and quivers, shields, and hones; horse-gear, particularly the cheek-pieces of their
bridles ..., frontlets, and saddles, waggon parts, specially pole tops and standards. Men
and women had metal plates sewn to their clothes, and straps (women s gear arc nearly
always foreign imports), belts and buckles and strap-ends, cauldrons, cups and bowls,
mirrors/ There is no need to assume that the newcomers in Luristan - be they Cimmer­
ians Scythians, or Medes - made these tilings themselves; in fact, the repertory o t ie
T 1 iris tan bronzes, with its close affinities to Mesopotamian diemes, suggests that ie
tal-workers were set to supply the needs of their new masters. There are, in t le
native me
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