Kushano-Sasanian Plate from the Northern Wei tomb of Feng Hetu
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Extracts from
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The information provided in the published articles supports a late third century date for this plate. However, the figure represented has none of the identifying features of a Sasanian king. Within a Sasanian context, the hunter, who does not wear a crown and lacks the distinctive royal feature of a hair ball drawn up above the top of the head, can only be a prince or a member of the highest nobility. A few early Sasanian silver vessels from sites west of Iran (Krasnaya Polyana and Shemakha) and in Iran (Sari) illustrate scenes in which such high-ranking, princely personages appear in hunting scenes.5 East of Iran, in this same period, the late third and early fourth centuries, there is also some evidence of a production of silverware modelled on Sasanian works of art. An example of this class of vessel is a plate in the Hermitage Museum illustrating a horseman wearing a rams-horn headdress surmounted by a striated globe (fig. 3).6 This plate combines standard Sasanian features (details of hair arrangement and dress) with formal and compositional details that have no parallels on Sasanian silverware and characterize the art of the lands on Iran's eastern border. Such provincial adaptations of Sasanian silverware continued to be made in the East (Khorasan and Bactria [Tokharistan]) throughout the Sasanian period and during the centuries following the collapse of that dynasty.7
The existence of a provincial eastern production of silver vessels, modelled on the Sasanian court type, raises the question of whether the plate found at Datong belongs to the class of early, non-royal, Sasanian court silverware or whether it is a vessel made in an Eastern workshop. The following analysis of the plate found in the tomb of Feng Hetu is based on the articles published in Wen Wu where the vessel appears in a black and white illustration (fig. 1) and in a rubbing of the interior surface (fig. 2).
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The measurements of the vessel are: height 4.1 cm, diameter 18 cm, diameter of the foot ring 4.5 cm, height of the foot 1.4 cm. In the Chinese publications the weight of the Datong plate is not given. The vessel is damaged and a section along the rim is missing. No information is available, or visible from the photographs, concerning gilding or toolmarks. As the plate was not cleaned at the time of publication, it is impossible to know whether there is an inscription on the exterior below the rim or within the foot ring, the two most probable places.
The dimensions of the plate found in China are significantly smaller than those of most early Sasanian plates decorated with hunting scenes. These vessels generally have a diameter of 28 to 29 cm. The only early Sasanian plate that is comparable in size, and that shares with the plate excavated in China the deep bowl-like form, is a vessel in the British Museum decorated with the image of a Sasanian king, Shapur I (241-272), astride a stag whom he kills with a thrust of his sword (fig. 4).8 An interior moulding surrounds this design well below the rim, a feature that also appears on the vessel from the tomb of Feng Hetu. The British Museum plate comes, allegedly, from Anatolia.
The earliest provincial silver plate of "Sasanian" type is the vessel described above in the Hermitage Museum (fig. 3). This work of art shares with the plate in the British Museum (fig. 4) and the vessel found in China (fig. 1) the deep bowl-like form and the presence of an interior moulding below the rim on the interior. However, the diameter of the Hermitage Museum plate is significantly greater, 28 to 29 cm.
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The image of the boar hunter, the pure profile view of the head and the arrangement of the moustache and beard, are details that have close parallels on Sasanian works of art for which a date in the third century has been suggested.9 Most of the figures represented on the early Sasanian silver bowls and plates do not wear royal crowns and the hair is not gathered in a ball above the head, the customary mode for royalty and divinities in Sasanian art.10 Other features that characterize the hunter on the plate found near Datong, namely the balls of hair flying out before the head and the form of the necklace, are repeated on an early fourth-century vessel allegedly found at Sari in northwestern Iran.11
There is no parallel on Sasanian silverware for the pose of the major figure on the plate found in China, the hunter. This figure, on foot rather than on horseback, has his right leg bent sharply upward so that the sole of the foot rests squarely on the brow of the charging boar.
The significance of this extraordinary scene is unclear, but the appearance of virtually the same subject on a later fourth- or early fifth-century silver-gilt plate that appeared recently on the market in Kabul (fig. 5) suggests that the scene refers to a well-known feat or event recorded in historical or literary sources.12 On the Kabul vessel the hunter wears a headdress unknown on Sasanian coins but his high rank is indicated by the ball of hair rising above the head. A close examination of this plate, which is now in an American private collection, has revealed the presence, within the foot ring on the reverse, of a four-line inscription in cursive Greco-Bactrian script and in Pahlavi script. Although the style of the figural design is not dissimilar to Sasanian works of art of the fifth century A.D., the unusual motif, the unparalleled headdress, the position of the head turned to the left, the spot-gilding and the inscription are all clear indications that the vessel is a provincial work of art made somewhere in the region in which it first appeared on the market.
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The pose of the hunters on the Kabul plate and on the vessel found in China conveys a sense of action and movement. A similarly dynamic composition characterizes the scene on the plate in the Hermitage Museum illustrating a hunter wearing a ram's-horn headdress (fig. 3). The hunter clings to the neck of his rearing mount and raises his leg sharply and unnaturally upward away from the charging boar whom he slashes with his sword. The vigorous action and dynamic tension apparent in the scenes on these three plates are characteristic of works of art made in Khorasan, Bactria and Sogdiana in the first millennium A.D.13 In contrast, the official art of the Sasanian court is standardized and unrealistic. The figures are static images, canonical symbols of royalty.
There are good reasons for attributing the plate illustrating a hunter wearing a ram's-horn headdress and the plate from Kabul to eastern workshops. Is it also probable that the silver vessel buried in the tomb of Feng Hetu in northwestern China was made in some region on the eastern border of Iran?
The silver vessels of Sasanian type produced in the Near East and western Central Asia during the third and early fourth centuries A.D. are modelled to a greater or lesser degree on the silverware of the Imperial Roman world. They have been found in four regions: the western provinces of the Sasanian kingdom; central Iran; the area roughly encompassed by modern Afghanistan; and the river valleys west of the Ural Mountains. Early Sasanian court products come from the first two areas, the western provinces and the heart of the Sasanian kingdom.14 On these vessels busts of princes and of one king, Bahram II, are represented, as well as scenes of non-royal personages hunting. Other silver vessels differing from these Sasanian works of art are associated with the lands east and north of Iran. One plate follows
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rather closely a Sasanian or Late Antique model. This vessel, now lost, was once allegedly in the collection of the Emir of Badakhshan and was acquired by Sir Alexander Burnes in Afghanistan.15 It is decorated with a scene in which an equestrian hunter wearing a headdress in which a crescent appears on the top of his head (a type unknown on Sasanian monuments) spears a lion. There is no ball of hair drawn up above the hunter’s head nor any other indication of royal rank. Another work of art made in a different Eastern workshop is the plate in the Hermitage Museum on which a hunter wearing a rams-horn headdress surmounted by a striated globe is depicted (fig. 3).16 This plate, found in the Ural Mountain region, is less closely comparable to Sasanian works. The style is Sasanian but the pose of the equestrian hunter, his headdress, and the composition of the scene have no parallels on Sasanian official or dynastic works of art.
The number of silver vessels that has survived from this period in the late third and early fourth centuries must be a small percentage of the original production, and it is hazardous with so little evidence to try and define precisely categories or classes of objects. The image on the plate found in China differentiates this work of art from the examples of early Sasanian silverware known at present and from the silverware made in the East that adheres closely, in form and decoration, to Sasanian court models.
Only one early silver vessel attributable to a Sasanian workshop illustrates a hunting scene that is as unrealistic and unusual in design as the hunt appearing on the plate from the tomb of Feng Hetu. This is the fourth-century vessel in the British Museum described above (fig. 4). The subject portrayed is not a standard early Sasanian scene of hunting. The hunter is astride a stag whose horn he grasps and whom he slays with a sword thrust. This is a motif which is difficult to interpret except in the context of Iranian legend and against the background of the period in which it was made. In the Garshaspnarneh, the Iranian hero overcomes stags by grasping their horns and throwing them on the ground, a heroic feat similar to the subject represented on the vessel in the British Museum.17 Presumably the personage for whom this work of art was made was familiar with this language of legendary images and understood the reference to heroic as well as royal power. I have suggested elsewhere that the plate in the British Museum was made in unusual circumstances in the early fourth century when the new ruler, Shapur II, was still a child.18 At this time, before the initiation of a controlled, royal, silver production, an ancestor and namesake, Shapur I, in heroic as well as royal guise, may have been selected as an appropriate, prestigious image for the official silverware produced in the name of the child-king.
Significant features of the representation on the plate in the British Museum (fig. 4) are the idealized nature of the hunting scene, which lacks vigorous action, and the presence of an identifiable Sasanian crown. These features characterize all central Sasanian, royal silverware but they are lacking on the plate found in the tomb of Feng Hetu. Furthermore, the unusual motif on the plate found in China is almost exactly reproduced on the silver plate (fig. 5 described above, a vessel made in a workshop that was probably located in the region of Bactria. Although not conclusive, the evidence suggests that the silver plate excavated in China was also made east of Iran in a region strongly influenced by Sasanian culture and art.
Who is the hunter on the plate found in the tomb of Feng Hetu and what authority does he represent? The headdress of the hunters on the plate from Kabul (fig. 5) and on the Hermitage Museum vessel (fig. 3) are surmounted by a globe and are, consequently, probably to be interpreted as crowns. The figures represented on the plate found in China (fig. 1) and on the Burnes plate lack this royal attribute and their rank or position must be a different one.
The history of the lands bordering on the Sasanian kingdom to the east, Merv and the Kushan realm, is complex and obscure. As Martha Carter has written in this same volume, there existed, under Ardeshir I, according to the Kaʿba-yi Zardusht inscription, an independent Mervshah. This ruler may be the person represented on a group of copper coins modelled on early Sasanian images and bearing the legend, Mervshah.19 The head on the reverse of these coins is sometimes represented turned to the left. Although the ruler wears no crown, he has the royal attribute of a ball of hair drawn up above the head.
There is no mention in the Kaʿba-yi Zardusht inscription of a Mervshah at the time the inscription was written, A.D. 262, in the reign of Shapur I, and Merv was then probably under direct Sasanian rule.20 While the new authority in the East, a Sasanian royal prince, minted no coins of his own
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he may have commissioned silverware comparable to the products of Sasanian princes in the western provinces and in Iran. As we have noted above, two of these early princes may be depicted on the plates from Shemakha and Krasnaya Polyana where they are portrayed with the head turned to the left. Neither of these figures wears a crown or has the hair drawn up above the head. The first period of Sasanian control in the region of Merv, according to the interpretation of Martha Carter, lasted only for a brief time, from 262 to sometime around A.D. 275. At two later periods, from around A.D. 283 to the 290s, and in the first decade of the fourth century, Sasanian rule is again documented by coins minted at Merv. first-hand examination and study of the plate found in the tomb of Feng Hetu is necessary in order to determine with any certainty the period in which it was made and the school of metalworking to which it belongs. The hypothesis offered here is that this unusual work of art was made in the territories east of Iran possibly around Merv during a period in which Sasanian authority extended into that region in the second half of the third century. The hunter is, presumably, the Sasanian overlord, a son or grandson of Shapur I.21 This conclusion is based on the stylistic appearance of the scene represented and the fact that the hunter wears no royal crown and displays no other symbol of kingship, notably the hairball above the head. The plate is similar to one other early Sasanian vessel, the example in the British Museum (fig. 4), in size and form, and the style in which the figural decoration is executed does not differ significantly from early Sasanian works of art. However, the subject matter and the way in which this subject matter is depicted are not comparable to any early Sasanian representations known at this time. It is probable, therefore, that the plate found in China was made in an eastern workshop, perhaps at Merv, for the Sasanian authority in the region. Another representative of that same authority in the area of Merv appears, in my opinion, on the Burnes plate, a vessel that also has the characteristics of a work made at the end of the third or beginning of the fourth century.
The dynamism of the scene appearing on the plate from northern China has parallels in the art of lands east of Iran. This art had little influence on the later official Sasanian court silverware which follows traditions of the Imperial Roman world and continues a development that began with early Sasanian works of art produced for princes in the western territories and in central Iran.
The precise meaning of the scene on the plate found in the tomb of Feng Hetu remains unclear but it is probable that this is a legendary feat of prowess and that the figure symbolizes not only secular authority but also heroic character and strength.22 Our colleagues in China have unearthed a document of considerable importance, a remarkable discovery that expands our knowledge of the ancient world in a period of development and expansion in the first half of the first millennium A.D.
Notes
1. J. Rawson, "Tombs or Hoards: The Survival of Chinese Silver of the Tang and Song Periods, Seventh to Thirteenth Centuries A.D.," in Pots and Pans, ed. M. Vickers, Oxford Studies in Islamic Art 3 (Oxford, 1986), 31-56; Shih Hsio-Yen, "Gold and Silver Vessels excavated in Northern China: Problems of Origin," New Asia Academic Bulletin 4 (Hong Kong, 1983), 63-82; Hsia Nai, "Sassanian Objects," Social Sciences in China, 1980.2 (Beijing, 1980), 153-61 (reprinted in Kaogu 1978.2).
2. Ma Yuji, “Excavation report of a tomb of the Northern Wei dynasty at Huagetatai in Xiaozhan Village near the city of Datong," Wen Wu (1983.8), 1-4; Xia Nai, "Study of the Sasanian silver plate discovered in the tomb of Feng Hetu of the Northern Wei dynasty," Wen Wu (1983.8), 5-7; Ma Yong, "The tomb of Feng Hetu of the Northern Wei dynasty and the Persian silver plate," Wen Wu (1983.8), 8-12, 39.
3. P. O. Harper, "Boat-shaped Bowls of the Sasanian Period," IrAn 23 (1988), 336.
4. Shih Hsio-Yen, "Gold and silver vessels,” p. 65, pl. 15.
5. P. O. Harper and P. Meyers, Silver Vessels of the Sasanian Period, vol. l (New York, 1981), pp. 48-57, pls. 8-10.
6. Harper and Meyers, Silver Vessels, pp. 72-74, pl. 23. The later dating, end of the fourth or early fifth century, proposed by Marshak and Lukonin for this vessel is based on Lukonin's reconstruction and dating of the Kushano-Sasanian coin series. Few scholars accept his dating of these coins, and stylistically this plate cannot be, in my opinion, such a late work: V. G. Lukonin and K. V. Trever, Sasanidskoe serebro (Moscow, 1987), 61-62.
7. Harper and Meyers, Silver Vessels, 72-81, 133-35; B. Marshak and Ia. K. Krikis, “The Chilek vessels," TGE 10 (1969), 55-81; B. Marschak, Silberschtze des Orients (Leipzig, 1986), 23-39, 255-97; V. P. Darkevich, Khudozhestvennyi metall Vostoka VIII-XIII vv. (Moscow, 1976), 63-74.
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8. O. M. Dalton, The Treasure of the Oxus (London, 1964), pp. 60-61, pl. 36; Harper and Meyers, Silver Vessels, pp. 57-60, 133, pl. 13. Lukonin identifies the crown as the crown of Shapur II as it appears on Sasanian-Kushan coins minted at Merv: Trever and Lukonin, Sasanidskoe serebro, 58. Analyses of the metal relate this vessel to early Sasanian coins and silverware: Harper and Meyers, Silver Vessels, 170.
9. Harper and Meyers, Silver Vessels, pp. 24-36, pl. 3.
10. Ibid., pls. 1, 3, 6, 8-12.
11. Ibid., pp. 52-55, pl. 10.
12. F. Grenet, "Un plat sasanide d'Ardašīr II (379-383) au bazar de Kabul," Studia Iranica 12 (1983), 195-205. See Harper in Glories of the Past, ed. D. von Bothmer (New York, 1990), 58-59.
13. V. A. Litvinsky and V. S. Solov'ev, "L'art du Tokharistan a l'époque du Haut Moyen Age," AAs 40 (1985), 5-17.
14. Harper and Meyers, Silver Vessels, pp. 24-57, pls. 1-10.
15. Harper and Meyers, Silver Vessels, pp. 55-57, pl. 11. Lukonin and Marshak have suggested a later date for this vessel in the reign of Yezdegird I (399-420) on the basis of an unusual coin of that king on which a crescent appears on the forehead diadem (R. Gobl, Sasanian Numismatics (Braunschweig, 1971), pl. VIII): Trever and Lukonin, Sasanidskoe serebro, 61; Marshak and Krikis, "Chilek vessels," 63. On the Burnes plate the crescent is on the top of the head, not above the forehead. A hunter wearing the same crescentic headdress as on the Burnes plate and lacking a hairball above the head appears on an early fourth-century plate similar in style and technique to the Sari plate: Kunstschfitze aus Iran (Zurich, 1962), p. 187, cat. 898, pl. 65. This hunter has the royal attribute of the apezak or chest straps, a feature shared by the hunter appearing on the Sari plate but absent on the Burnes hunter. The type of tree represented on the plate in the Zurich catalogue appears almost exclusively on works of art made in the area of Afghanistan and western Central Asia. It is not typically Sasanian. I propose that this vessel, which I have never handled, is a product of an eastern workshop.
16. See n. 6 above.
17. Le Livre de Gerchsp d'Asadi de Tos, trans. H. Massé (Paris, 1951), 123.
18. Harper and Meyers, Silver Vessels, 59-60.
19. S. D. Loginov and A. B. Nikitin, "Coins with horsemen from Merv," SA (1986.3), 24-3-49.
20. For a list of Sasanian princes who were rulers of Sakastan, Turkestan and India see: V. G. Lukonin, Kullsura sasanidskogo Irana (Moscow, 1969), 197.
21. Lukonin has attempted at various times to identify the non-royal figures represented on early Sasanian vessels with specific members of the royal family. In his last book Sasanidskoe serebro he wisely backed away from these identifications. There is too much uncertainty about the exact period (within a decade) in which each of these vessels was made to permit the identification of individual princes.
22. One of the Labors of Heracles is the capture, alive, of the Erymanthian boar. This subject appears on a silver plate which is probably of early Sasanian date and provincial (eastern?) manufacture: Trésors de l'ancien Iran, Musée Rath (Geneva, 1966), cat. 677, fig. 71. The plate is called Parthian. On the plates found in China (fig. 1) and acquired in Kabul (fig. 5) the boar is similarly "overcome" (by a blow from the hunter's foot) but not slain. Possibly this image combines features from both Greek and Iranian legends. For the widespread appearance of Heracles in the art of Iran see R. Ghirshman, "Un bas-relief Parthe de la Collection Foroughi," in ArtAs 37.3 (1975), 229-39; T. S. Kawami, Monumental Art of the Parthian Period in Iran, Acta Iranica 26 (Leiden, 1987), l1l-17. For Heracles in Bactria, see Pugachenkova in VDI (19772), 77-92. For the opinion that all Sasanian royal hunting scenes have religious significance, see the discussion in Trever and Lukonin, Sasanidskoe serebro, 54-60.
Source: JSTOR
