The Bronzes of Luristan(Part 2.)

A few of the bronzes from Luristan can be fitted into the phases worked out above for the seals: an early phase under strong kassite and Mitannian influence, a second phase in which an expressive style was formed on the basis of Elamite prototypes [tentatively that phase may be dated in the tenth and ninth centuries B.C.], and a third phase [which may have lasted until the end of the seventh century B.C.] in which earlier forms were varied and enriched.

All the objects cannot be fond in all phases. The only objects which one can certainly assign to the earliest phase are daggers and axes which have inscriptions naming Babylonian kings of the twelfth and eleventh centuries B.C. [10] The reason why these inscribed daggers were found in Luristan is subject of debate among scholars. While it is undeniable that certain ones were dedicated to deities, and were presumably deposited in sanctuaries, others could have been used to compensate deserving leaders of auxiliaries. Another interpretation sees in the weapons loot from Babylonian and Elamite temples. [11] At any rate, both daggers and axes served as examples for later, somewhat more exaggerated forms produced in Luristan. [p. 82]

The bowl in Plate 18 is said to have been found with two such daggers in a cave near Kermanshah. Its decoration of a tree flanked by two walking bulls is closely linked with that of the seal-ring discussed above. Both differ from Babylonian renderings of the theme, which have neither the typical curve of the neck nor the strongly arched breast. Moreover, the raised foreleg of each of the bulls deprives their stance of the solidity which a Babylonian artist would have sought for his figures. In Iran, on the other hand, the natural relation to the groundline is often disregarded. A good example is the goat and man on the admittedly far earlier vase from Susa D.

The majority of the bronzes appears to belong to the second and third phases, which are as yet difficult to differentiate. Only a few types of bronzes will be discussed here, and only very tentative suggestions can be made for their classification.

Among the cast bronzes the standards show the greatest variety in style and form. Possibly the simply and naturalistically modelled standards with two small ibexes are the earliest. Standards in which the bodies of the ibexes are more elongated and subjected to an abstract principle of decoration are here taken to be of later date. In these standards the curvature of the horns is answered by a curvature of the neck which continues in lesser curves throughout the body. Such a tendency toward more abstract and attenuated forms was observed in cylinder seals from Luristan dated approximately in the tenth or ninth century B.C. In the standards with feline creatures no such development from a more naturalistic to an abstract type can be observed; instead, the felines immediately appear with long, decoratively curved necks. These long-necked feline creatures remind one of the demon of an Elamite cylinder seal from Tchoga Zanbil, which is probably later than the bulk of the seals from that site and may be contemporary with the bronzes.

The bronzes were probably first formed in wax and later cast in bronze by the lost-wax process. The heads of the feline animals seem to have been formed of coils of wax, which were made to surround the eyes and the jaws. It seems likely that the most carefully formed were the earliest, whereas those made with 'labour-saving devices' became less clearly differentiated in form and probably belong to a later period. [p. 84]

Composite standards in which a demonic figure with human head and torso is combined with animal forms may be later than the simpler feline and ibex standards, tough the strong geometric tendency in the composition of these standards corresponds to the style here thought to characterize the art of the beginning of the first millennium. There have been rumours that such standards were found together with pottery of the second millennium B.C. [12] Before positive evidence is produced by controlled excavations, however, we can do no more here than draw the reader's attention to the extraordinarily powerful impact produced by these standards. In the standard shown here a demonic figure grasps by the throat monsters which have yawning jaws or beaks and cocks' combs and may represent griffins. A pair of similar heads with closed beaks clearly recognizable as griffin heads appears on a lower level of the standard. The lower part of the demonic figure is formed by the hips and legs of an animal, and human feet, with the toes as if seen from above, form the whiskers of a demonic face. Two other faces with staring eyes appear above. The eyes and the combination of monstrous and human forms were surely thought to be a powerful means of averting the approach of evil demons. The specific significance of this and other composite demons in Luristan bronzes, however, may never be known.

Some suggestion for the way in which standards could have been set up can be made merely for the ibex standards. A tube is frequently pushed through the ring against which the ibexes lean with their forefeet; in some cases it has become permanently attached to the standard by corrosion. [13] The tube could have held a flower or slender branch, or perhaps a pin with a head in the form of a fruit such as a pomegranate. [14] With such a vegetal element between them, the ibexes would have been a three-dimensional version of the venerable motif of goats with a tree. The same motif is shown in a rein-ring here taken to be Elamite. If this assumption can be maintained, [15] it seems possible that the ibex standards go back to Elamite prototypes.

The representation of ibexes with a tree, which is also found on a cylinder seal excavated in Luristan, [16] recalls the fact that horned animals and a tree are associated with a mother goddess in the Haramosh valley. Perhaps similar concepts were current in Luristan, although ibex and moufflon are indigenous animals and would naturally appear in any iconography of the region.

Whether the two feline animals with a tree seen in the pin-head reproduced here indicate that the feline standards should be reconstructed in the same way as the ibex standards, and whether they belong to the same cycle of ideas remains unknown.

Other bronzes have motifs derived from nature and the life of animals, perhaps without any deeper meaning. Such is the pin of the type here reproduced as Figure 56. A feline animal, lion or panther, or a dog pursues an ibex and a moufflon rendered by a play of curves which is not only visually pleasing but also expresses the desperate and doomed flight of the horned animals as they escape their pursuer.

Comparison with the placid rendering of a related motif, a lion pursuing a goat, in the ancillary scene of an Elamite cylinder shows up the singularly expressive powers and aesthetic qualities of some of the Luristan bronzes. If we are right in dating late those feline heads which are rendered in a very simplified manner, the pin should be dated about 800 B.C.

Curious square or round finials, here called wands [a term coined by Erich [p. 86] Schmidt], [17] constitute a group which I should like to place relatively early in the Luristan sequence because of the carefully coiled feline heads and the painstaking hatching of the framing device. It is interesting to note how ably the artist linked the figure of the moufflon demon in the centre with those of the feline creatures at his sides, occasionally using rosettes to fill the interval between figure and frame.

The figure of the demon with moufflon horns shows how long this demon survived in the regions of south-western Iran. We found the demon first on a prehistoric stamp seal, then again on the stele of Untashgal from Susa; now it appears on Luristan bronzes. This shows how much of the ancient Iranian heritage was preserved in the Bronzes of Luristan.

One of the most attractive groups of bronzes from Luristan comprises the cheekpieces, usually a pair of animals or monsters joined by a rigid bronze bar. Ghirshman made the interesting observation that none of these bars, of which he examined several dozen, showed the slightest sign of usage. The peasants who dig up these cheek-pieces call them 'under the head'. Ghirshman suggested that, by placing such a bit under the head of the deceased, one created the illusion that he would make his last journey on horseback or in a chariot [even though he might not have been one of the privileged group of charioteers or horsemen during his life]. [18]

It will surely be possible one day to differentiate between earlier and later cheek-pieces, but at present such divisions cannot be supported by results from stratified finds. In some of the cheek-pieces, such as those reproduced in Plate 20, an ancient artistic device of Iranian art is employed in turning the animals' heads at right angles to the axis of the body and modelling them three-dimensionally [see the comments below on this device in connection with some of the gold vessels from Marlik, p. 91]. Yet there is no reason to assume that these cheek-pieces are earlier than those in which the head is shown on the same axis as the rest of the body, as in the piece reproduced in Plate 21 above.

The stylistic differences between the two pairs of cheek-pieces reproduced in Plate 20 are striking. In the lower pair the bodies are quite flat and merely show a linear patterning of the surface, and the heads are worked in the round without much differentiation of the planets. In the upper pair a greater amount of modelling has resulted in more rounded forms. Probably such differences indicate that these cheek-pieces were made in different work shops situated in different localities rather than that there was a difference in time between objects of such similar type. [p. 87]