Sasanian Silver plate showing a king hunting lions
British Museum 124092.

Museum number: 124092

Description
Silver plate showing a king hunting lions; originally with a foot ring (AF5); traces of gilding survive in places, for instance on the background next to the ends of the ribbons trailing behind the king and on the disc of the crown supporting the globe at the top.

Gilding on the back paws of the lion cub, head, shoulders, claws and rear of the upper lion, rear of the lower lion, crown, hooves, floating pompon balloons, edge of the saddle-cloth and ends of the shoulder ribbons, thus used as highlighting rather than over the reverse ground.


Cultures/periods: Late Sasanian
Production date: 5thC-7thC
Materials: silver

Dimensions
Diameter: 7.20 centimetres (exterior of foot ring)
Diameter: 27.60 centimetres
Height: 4.90 centimetres (minus foot ring)
Weight: 934 grammes


Curator's comments
A loose copy of this plate was offered for auction by Sotheby's (NY), lot 456, on Friday 2 December 1988, wherein described as "first half of the 20th Century". Three others, of silver and gold, are said to have been made in Rawalpindi and Peshawar: one was acquired through the Paris branch of Feuerdent by the Hermitage (Smirnov 1909, no.55: "modern"), a second was acquired by Hagop Kevorkian in 1937 and a third, of gold, was reported by Smirnov. The weight of the present bowl was published in Brussels catalogue as 936 g. but this is slightly incorrect.

Hammered silver plate with rim defined on the interior with a single engraved line; subsequently detached circular foot ring, now largely missing but indicated by traces of old solder; interior represents the mounted figure of a king brandishing a lion cub in one hand in a manner characteristic of Late Antique hunts. The cub's parents are depicted leaping upwards, one already wounded and the second being slashed with a long straight double-edged pommel-less sword held in the king's right hand. The rider has already discarded his bow but he still carries his decorated tapered box quiver slung from his right thigh; the scabbard is not visible as it would have been slung on the opposite side. Other details are consistent with other Sasanian depictions, such as the decorated bridle, the pair of tasselled balloons rising from the rear of the saddle, and the absence of stirrups. The sword type is also consistent with Sasanian rather than later depictions. The stylised motif at the bottom of the plate was intended to represent hilly terrain. The silver has been analysed by XRF and suggested to have a silver composition of 94.2 – 94.9%, copper content of 4.05 – 4.7%, and 0.5 – 0.7% gold. Neutron activation analysis confirmed a broadly similar composition of 96.4% silver, 3.02% copper and 0.63% gold. These results are consistent with most ancient silver but the minor trace elements distinguishes it from other objects believed to have been made from a so-called "central Sasanian" ore source. The decoration was made by engraving and chasing, and extensive areas of the design were spot gilded, including the crown, chest-girdle, belt, parts of the quiver, vertical trouser folds, horse harness, the horse’s hooves and tail, balloon fittings, and the lions’ bodies. Dots on the interior, including one on the back of the rider’s hand, appear to be remnants from the laying out of the design. There is no centering mark on the underside, nor are there traces of an inscription indicating previous ownership, value or weight. The rider is popularly interpreted as being a representation of the Sasanian king Bahram (Varahran) V (r. 421-439), who was renowned for his hunting exploits, with a scene similar to this described in the Shah-Nameh. However, the rider's crown is beribboned and crenellated, with a crescent on either side and surmounted by a korymbos. This does not exactly match that of Bahram V, or indeed any other Sasanian ruler, each of whom adopted an individual crown on their accession to the throne and which are carefully depicted on their coin portraits. Although at least some of these rulers are known to have had more than one crown type, it is more likely that this plate is a later attempt to glorify the hunting exploits of Sasanian monarchy rather than being a specific portrait: the successful hunt became a metaphor for royal khwarnah (glory and good fortune), and this extended to the owners of the plate. As such, this object has been regarded as provincial Sasanian production of the 5th, 6th or 7th century. The relatively sketchy manner in which the design was executed supports this interpretation, and it shares close stylistic comparisons with an inscribed plate in the Blumka collection which is palaeographically dated between the 5th and mid-7th centuries, and a second example found at Chilek near Samarkand. All of these have silver compositions which suggest they originated from sources other than that used for so-called “central Sasanian” plates as those contain slightly higher amounts of iridium and are presumed to originate within Iran.
This plate was acquired by Major-General Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893) of the Indian army and later Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India. It later passed into the collection of Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks (1826-1897), who bequeathed it to the British Museum. It inspired a number of copies which are said to have been made in Rawalpindi and Peshawar: one was acquired by the Hermitage in the 19th century from the Paris branch of the dealer Feuerdent but recognised by Smirnov (1909: no. 55) as "modern", a second entered the collection of the Armenian dealer-collector Hagop Kevorkian by 1937, and a third version made of gold was also reported by Smirnov (Harper 2000: 54).


Source: British Museum

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VESSELS WITH HUNTING SCENES

    British Museum lion-hunt plate (PL. 25). The next plate belonging in Group III is a large vessel (diam, 27.4 cm.) in the British Museum.¹⁸⁰ The provenance is unknown, but the plate was once in the collection of General Sir Alexander Cunningham, viceroy of India. The royal figure wears a variation of a Sasanian crown, mistakenly identified as that of Bahram V. Certain elements in the design of the crown make this attribution impossible. One is the row of hair curls or volutes above the forehead band; another is the presence, between the stepped crenelations and the globe, of a pair of horns, not in this instance those of a ram but rather a bull.¹⁸¹ They are arranged so that they form an almost perfect crescent, and this placement explains the confusion with the crown of the Sasanian king Bahram V. Finally, the band around the crown base is decorated with chevrons and two beads rather than with a continuous line of beads, as on the coins.
    Once again there is some difficulty in finding the correct position from which to view the plate. If the landscape elements are placed at the center of the base, the horse appears to plunge downward in an impossible fashion. If, however, the hooves of the horse are arranged in a horizontal line, the hillocks appear disturbingly off center.¹⁸² The proper solution must nevertheless be the latter one. From this viewpoint the king's body is bent slightly forward toward the right and is balanced by the stronger lines of two lions rising toward the left. The king's sword arm, slashing downward, meets the line of the lower lion's body, while his outstretched and upheld left hand, grasping a lion cub, forms the apex of the line drawn through the other lion. Although less striking than the design on the Hermitage plate with a hunter in a ram's-horn headdress (Pl. 23), the triangular arrangement of the scene is evident. In spite of the fact that the hind legs of both lions are cut off by the rim of the bowl, seemingly no attempt was made either to mask this feature or to fit the scene into the circle of the vessel's shape.
    The wavy lines of the royal garment and the circular pattern at the elbow and shoulder contribute to the richness of the surface design. Almost every part is enlivened with patterns of some sort. Within the stepped crenelations of the crown are minute dots. The globe above the crown also is evenly covered by circles and dots. The hair, shown as a mass of spirally curling lines, is bunched behind the king's head, and the long, tied beard is rendered by punched circles.¹⁸³ A smooth crescentic mustache and a tiny curl on the right temple are clearly depicted, the latter having parallels on a number of plates, the earliest of which is the vessel from Sari (Pl. 10). Earring, necklace, and

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    180. British Museum, acc. no. 124092; diam. 27.4 cm.; height without foot 4.8 cm; weight 936 gm. For bibliography before 1936, see Erdmann, “Die sasanidischen Jagdschalen,” p. 223. Erdmann considered this plate to be a seventh-century copy of a third-century original. Herzfeld identified the king as Bahram V and cited other monuments on which hair curls appear between the forehead band and the stepped crenelations of the crown. He considered the crown to be more correctly rendered on this plate than on the coins: Herzfeld, “Khusrau Parwez,” pp. 117 ff. Erdmann noted the existence of two replicas of this piece, one in the Hermitage Museum (Orbeli and Trever, Sas. Metall, pl. 10) and the other in the Kevorkian collection (Art News, Feb. 20, 1937, p. 10): Erdmann, “Zur Chronologie,” pp. 268-269. Dimand, Marshak, and Krikis date the plate in the reign of Bahram V: Dimand, “A Review of Sasanian and Islamic Metal work in A Survey of Persian Art” p. 195; Marshak and Krikis, “Chilekskie Chashi,” p. 63. Haskins states that this plate cannot be post-Sasanian because the sword is not so late a type, and any artist would faithfully represent the weapon of his own time: Haskins, “Northern Origins,” pp. 333-334.
    181. There are various reasons why a bull's horns might be represented rather than a plain crescent. The bull Nandi appears with the god Siva on the reverse of many Kushano-Sasanian coins: Göbl, Dokumente III, pls. 2-4. Hinnells mentions that bull-slaying may have been part of an ancient ritual preserved in the Zoroastrian Yasna ritual and that the mace of Mithra has at the end the head of a bull: Hinnells, “The Iranian Background of Mithraic Iconography,'' pp. 247-248. The most obvious connection between the bull and the crescent is that the bull was the main animal associated with Mah, the moon god.
    182. Erdmann thought that this strange landscape pattern was connected with the fire cult because of the “flame” pattern projecting from two of the hills: Erdmann, Kunst, p. 91.
    183. A small section of the ball of hair beneath the ribbon binding the beard is left undotted.

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bracelet are of standard form, as are the bowed belt and beaded sword strap. The remains of a small circular shoulder patch are just visible on the upper garment beside the necklace. A section of the halter is shown on the chest. Large ribbons fly from the forehead band, and lighter rippling ones with pairs of bells at their ends (as on the Shapur plate [Pl. 13] in the British Museum) come from the halter. The full quiver is divided into two unequal zones, both filled with abstract plantlike forms.
    The horse is shown with forelegs placed on the ground and rigidly extended before the body, starting backward from the mauling attack of the lions. Four crenelations have been cut in the mane, while three locks of long hair fall at intervals against the neck. The hairs of the tail are gathered in the form of a bow. Although the head of the horse is scarcely turned toward the viewer, the second ear, eye, and nostril are visible, as on the first plate in this group (Pl. 23). A ring-shaped snaffle bit is carefully depicted, as are the divided reins, decorated with pendent beads. Across the chest and rump are straps with a compact row of suspended bells. There is nothing in the design of the saddle blanket to distinguish it from that on the Hermitage plate with a hunter wearing ram's horns (Pl. 23). Ribbons project from the back corner. A portion of the beaded girth appears under the belly, and the saddlebow is suggested by a stylized pair of curling lines. Rising above the horse's back are chains and hair balls, the latter shown as simple wavy lines uninterrupted by horizontal divisions. Half the surface of the balls is covered with what appears to be a cloth, a new feature, but these spheres are still gathered into leafy bases. The muscles of the horse's hind leg are indicated by single lines forming ovoid shapes, as on the Shapur plate in the British Museum (Pl. 13).
    The lions' bodies are covered by long rows of hatched lines, and both have tufted manes in spite of the fact that the presence of nipples on the belly of the upper animal indicates that this is a lioness.¹⁸⁴ Half of the body of the cub is missing. Both adults are wounded, spurts of blood coming from their bodies. This is shown in a fashion related to that on the Shapur plate in the British Museum (Pl. 13). Neither animal is obviously dead, but blood comes from the mouth of the lower lion whose head has been almost severed.
    The narrative elements in the present scene have been emphasized partly because the king has been mistakenly identified as Bahram V (Gur), the legendary hunter-king of Sasanian Iran.¹⁸⁵ In fact, the capture of the young as a method of drawing forth the adults was a common practice in Roman hunts, and a near-replica of this scene appears on one of the mosaic pavements found in a villa at Antioch (Fig. 20).¹⁸⁶ It is probable, therefore, that this composition was never intended to represent any particular heroic feat but is rather a variation of a standard hunting scene.¹⁸⁷
    The vessel's method of fabrication is simple. No parts are added, the entire scene being chased and incised on the surface of the plate. Dotted outlines or guide points are visible in many places; this suggests that some model, perhaps of leather, was laid over the plate and the pattern pricked onto the metal surface.¹⁸⁷ A centering mark appears on the inside, obverse surface just to the left of the sword guard. The gilding is spotted over the surface of the scene. There is no line beneath the rim on the exterior, a detail that is present on most of the plates in the preceding group and on the first two vessels in this group.

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    184. Erdmann noted that the artist forgot to omit the mane on the lioness: Kunst, p. 91.
    185. Francovich believed this to be a specific legendary event and that this explained the variations from the standard Sasanian hunt: “Il concetto della regalità,” p. 13. Marshak and Krikis also stressed the narrative nature of this scene: “Chilekskie Chashi,” p. 63.
    186. Levi, Antioch Mosaic Pavements I, p. 365, fig. 151 (mosaic of the Worcester Hunt). Levi gives the reference to a passage in Pliny (Natural History, Book VIII, 18, 25) describing this method of hunting the tigris Hyrcana.
    187. Sidonius describes precisely this method of hunting a tigress in a simile between himself and a Parthian: Sidonius, Book IX, Letter IX, p. 190. The letter was written in A.D. 475.
    188. This method of manufacture is suggested by Marshak and Krikis for the Chilek plate (Pl. 30): Marshak and Krikis, “Chilekskie Chashi,” p. 59. Preliminary dotted sketches were also used on some of the Sasanian graffiti at Persepolis: E. F. Schmidt, Persepolis I, pl 199B.

Source: pp. 76-77, Silver Vessels of the Sasanian Period. Vol. 1, Royal Imagery, by Harper, Prudence O., and Pieter Meyers