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Silver and gold phiale with Persian king/hero, overview of bottom. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul) -
Silver and gold phiale with Persian king/hero, overview (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul) -
Silver and gold phiale with Persian king/hero, detail of Persian king/hero. (Courtesy of the Vedat Nedim Tör Museum, Istanbul)
Silver and gold phiale with Persian king/hero
The Lydians and their World
(2010)
Cat. 167
- Date
- Late 6th or early 5th c BC, Late Lydian (Persian)
- Museum
- Uşak, Archaeological Museum, 1.29.96
- Museum Inventory No.
- 1.29.96
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- Uşak 1.29.96
- Material
- Silver
- Object Type
- Metalwork
- Metalwork Type
- Metal Vessel
- Site
- Ikiztepe Tumulus
- Description
- The shallow bowl has an offset rim, and an extremely shallow omphalos with a centering mark on the underside. The bowl itself is silver, the gold decoration was made separately and applied. The ten tear-shaped lobes are hollow, slotted into grooves on the wall of the vessel, the lip around the outer edge of the groove folded and hammered down over a flange around the lobe (the same method is used for Özgen and Öztürk 1996, nos. 34, 36 and 37). Alternating with the lobes are ten plaques of a Persian male figure shown walking left, with one foot on each of a pair of addorsed eagle heads which surmount a ring. The figure is bearded and wears a crown. He holds before him with both hands a long spear, and he carries on his back a bow and quiver. The stance and attributes are commonly seen on Persian seals. Whether such figures are to be identified as the Persian king or a hero is a question which has yet to be resolved. The motif on the pointed projection at the bottom of the rings may be a hoofed foot device, rather than an ivy leaf.
The hoofed foot device appears as a motif on vessels from South Russia (Maikop). D. B. Stronach has commented that the forward position of vertical pleats in the dress of the ‘Persian king’ is a feature of early Achaemenian art and compatible with a date in the late 6th century BC. Applied plaques of a Persian male figure, shown killing a lion, appear on the bowl (Özgen and Öztürk 1996, no. 34), and there are gold plaques of crowned Persian male figures with bow and quiver, walking right, on a hemispherical silver bowl in the British Museum (WA 134740)” (Özgen and Öztürk 1996). Height 0.036 m, diameter at rim 0.153 m, diameter of body 0.13 m, weight 245.9 g.
- Comments
- From the Ikiztepe Tumulus.
- See Also
- Özgen, “Lydian Treasure”; Baughan, “Lydian Burial Customs”.
- Bibliography
- Özgen and Öztürk 1996, no. 33.
- Author
- İÖ