The Treasure of Ziwiye(Part 1.)

The fortress may have been built by the Manneans, who maintained themselves in this part of north-western Iran with relative political independence at least in this part of north-western Iran with relative political independence at least until the middle of the seventh century B.C. It is also possible, however, that the high point was fortified by the Assyrians, who were usually allied with the Manneans. The Assyrians were efficient military architects, but if they built the fortress they certainly did not leave any pottery there. The pottery which can be found on the site is predominantly the Late Buff ware associated by Cuyler Young with the spread of Median power.

The identity of the group which finally destroyed this mountain retreat is unknown, but we may try to make some guesses. Although the Assyrians seem to have had a sportsmanlike enthusiasm for climbing up to the mountain retreats of their opponents and capturing them, [3] more probably candidates for the role of destroyers of this remote site in Mannean territory are the Scythians. The latter were marauding Indo-European tribesmen whose activity in history seems to have been limited to large-scale pillaging in Western Asia, from Iran to the Mediterranean coast.

The Assyrian king Esharhaddon [680-669 B.C.] gave one of his daughters in marriage to the son of the Scythian leader Bartatua. This seems to have kept the Scythians on the side of the Assyrians for several decades, until a year before the fall the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, in 612 B.C. Before or after that event the Scythians for some time controlled the Medes, another Indo-European group which had moved from eastern to western Iran between the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages, roughly between the thirteenth and ninth centuries B.C. [4] In contrast to the Scythians, who had taken up an equestrian nomadic way of life, the Medes maintained a more settled, agricultural pattern of existence and were eventually able to achieve a political organization which made it possible for their kings to rule over most of Iran and large tracts of other parts of Western Asia that had formerly been part of the Assyrian empire. The Scythians appear never to have aimed for such an organization. It has even been suggested that their raids in Western Asia were conducted as part of their social pattern, not only for plunder, land and power but [p. 123] also for trophies, for which there were ritually regulated rewards that in turn determined the position of the individual in the community. [5]

Destruction of the citadel of Ziwiye by a group of such marauding Scythian warriors, who lacked the discipline and organization of the Assyrian army to transport back to the homeland a treasure found in the fortress, would fit quite well the limited evidence at our disposition. The fact that some of the ivories were partly burnt [for example, the figurine reproduced in Plate 35, which is burnt at the back] remains a mystery, because so far no trace of a fire has been discovered at the site. [6]

The treasure was contained in a large trough or tub, the flat rim of which is engraved with the figures of Assyrian officers and Iranian tributaries. On the sides of the trough were vertical strips of bronze showing gazelles and rosettes. Two troughs with similarly decorated vertical strips were used for burial in a Neo-Babylonian tomb at Ur, while another of the same shape but with undecorated strips was found at Zincirli in northern Syria [Turkey], used in a building interpreted as a bath-house. [7] Such troughs could therefore be used for various purposes, and the fact that there is no coffin known from Western Asia with such factual secular representations as those on the rim of the Ziwiye trough makes one think that the vessel would have been better suited for holding tribute rather than a corpse.

The tributaries engraved on the rim of the vessel wear long spotted garments with a fringed border and on their heads peaked caps, the point of which falls backwards. Their legs are covered with what may be woolen stockings, and their shoes have slightly upturned toes. Minor differences in the attire of these figures probably indicate that different peoples are represented here, but one can only guess at their identity: Medes, Scythians, but also other peoples may be shown. Most of the men carry an ibex horn, but two bring models of towns [8] such as those seen on some Assyrian reliefs and known from actual examples in bronze found at the Urartian site of Van. One man in the procession carries a large vessel reminiscent in its proportions of the gold bowl from Hasanlu. Such an object would certainly have been accepted as tribute, but one wonders [p. 124] whether the same would have been true of ibex horns, unless they were horn-shaped rhyta made of precious metal. If this was not the case, one can only suggest that the horns may have been tribal symbols and were brought as signs of submission, like the models of towns.

The principal person among the Assyrians pictured on the rim is differentiated by the pattern of his robe from the officers who surround him in plain fringed garments. As simplified in the present rendering, the pattern consists of squares, each with a dot in the centre. In reality, these squares may have contained more elaborate designs, such as a rosette or even towers, as in a robe of Sargon II. [9] A comparison with renderings on Assyrian reliefs of a pattern of dotted squares and of the hair style of the Assyrians on the trough--which shows a solid mop of curls projecting obliquely at the back--yields a date in or shortly after the time of the Assyrian king Tiglathpileser III [745-727 B.C.] as the most likely time at which the vessel could have been made.

The Assyrian dignitary in the engraving on the trough seems also to have been represented in an ivory statuette from Ziwiye mentioned above. Although one must always stress that objects said to come from Ziwiye cannot be proved actually to have been found there, the likelihood is very great that the figurine and the plaques to be discussed below were obtained from that site.

The first impression created by the figurine is that of a man standing humbly before his lord. This impression, so subtly produced by the slight forward inclination of the neck, indicates the hand of a master carver. Artistry of a high order is equally obvious in the clear definition of the planes in the face, the strong assured lines of the eyelids and mouth, and the extraordinarily sensitive, slight modeling of the shoulders. The long undulating fringe of the garment has a soft living quality. The feet have only as much naturalistic detail as is necessary to stress contrast with the stiff cylindrical skirt and thereby to create some interest for the viewer in the lower part of the figure. Of course these effects are apprehended only after an analysis of the figure; the artist who created the little sculpture surely did so without much conscious deliberation.

The statuette shows how the long-fringed shawl was wrapped over the shirt to [p. 125] form the fringed garment known from the Assyrian reliefs. The only un-Assyrian features are the receding forehead, the originally strongly projecting nose, and the exaggerated wavy, perhaps crinkly hair. These features probably characterized a person not of Assyrian stock, but obviously the man here portrayed nevertheless became a high Assyrian dignitary.

The purpose of the figure, rendered with its hands folded in a gesture of reverence toward king or god, cannot be determined, since the comparative material of unpublished fragments of other statues from Ziwiye in the Teheran Museum and one fragment from Zincirli [10] do not give any more indication than does the present example whether all of them were single figures or part of the decoration of some object. It can be stated with certainty only that our figure was free-standing and did not support anything on its head.

Our Assyrian dignitary, with the same gesture of folded hands, is seen again on one of the numerous ivory plaques found at Ziwiye. Wearing his long robe, he precedes two officers in kilts on his way, one would surmise, to attend a ceremony. Above and below this scene are panels showing contests between a hero and an animal. In contrast to the factual rendering of the figures in the central panel, those of the animal contests derive from the world of legend or mythology. The heroic deeds of a man of limitless courage and superhuman power seems to be illustrated, especially by the upper panel, in which the hero pushes a small hand-shield [resembling modern brass knuckles] between the open jaws of the lion and is about to run a spear into the animal's breast.

The position of the lion's forelegs, one stretched forward and the other backward, was surely meant to show the threateningly raised claws of the beast. A [p. 127] comparison of this scene with the same motif in a garment pattern on a relief of Ashurnasirpal II [883-859 B.C.] [11] shows that in the plaque of Ziwiye the proportions differ: the lion is larger, especially his head, and the hero�s shield is smaller; therefore the hero seems more endangered here than in the Assyrian rendering. The scene has thereby become more dramatic and arouses the interest of the viewer by its content rather than by highly finished and balanced forms. Such qualities characterize provincial art of many periods and countries and suggest that this group of plaques was not made in one of the large Assyrian towns but perhaps in a Mannean centre under Assyrian influence. One would assume that the date of the plaques corresponds to that of the ivory figurine and of the trough, but one must admit that the hair style is less distinctive of Tiglathpileser III [745-727 B.C.] and occasionally seems to render the mop of curls resting on the shoulder which came into use in the time of Sargon II [721-705 B.C.], the successor of Tiglathpileser.

Most of the ivory plaques of Assyrianizing style from Ziwiye show a palmette-tree alone or horned animals or sphinxes flanking such a tree. One of the finest has goats with a tree design composed of palmettes of doubly or triply interlaced tendrils with blossoms, found on reliefs and cylinder seals of the time of Sargon II. [12]

Comparison of the plaque with a fragment of a vessel from Hasanlu shows that the goat rendered in the latter fragment is livelier, has a more slender body, and places its feet on a simpler tree design. The ivory plaque from Ziwiye is more richly decorated but stiffer and obviously later in date. [p. 128]

Transformation of Assyrian motifs into a local stylistic idiom can be noted in a few places, not illustrated here, in which the human figures resemble those of the beaker of Hasanlu and of some ivory fragments found at that site. [13] Characteristic of the figures are their angular movements and the facial type with prominent straight noses, thin lips and straggly beards.