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  IRANIAN ART:
  ACHAEMENID DYNASTY
  The
  International Achaemenid Style
  Iran
  Under the Achaemenid Dynasty
  Achaemenid art is one of those
  categories that are taken for granted, with little attention being paid to the
  finer nuances. This was understandable as long as the amount of known material
  was minimal and the information available regarding its provenance could not be
  held to have much significance.
  The situation has changed in recent
  decades. Even if the wares now on record overwhelmingly originate from the
  clandestine digs that devastate the heritage of the past from the western shores
  of Anatolia to the easternmost areas of Afghanistan, there is growing evidence
  that objects qualifying as Achaemenid on the simple basis of comparison with
  material from Achaemenid Iran were widely disseminated within the borders of the
  Achaemenid Empire. In particular, so much has tumbled on to the market that came
  out of Lydia in western Anatolia and Armenia in the northeastern quarter that
  the stated provenance can no longer be dismissed out of hand as "not
  securely verified."
  The possibility, indeed, the
  probability, of local production must be considered as a working hypothesis in a
  number of cases. It is plausible to assume that some precious vessels would have
  been taken out of Iran by imperial officials to the distant outposts where they
  were stationed, or that, in other situations, imperial vessels would have been
  sent out from Iran to highly important officials of non-Iranian extraction. It
  is equally plausible to posit that there would have been local ateliers here and
  there striving to produce straight imitations and that these gradually gave rise
  to regional styles with increasingly distinctive characteristics.
  Difficulties begin the minute one tries to classify the
  available material according to these hypothetical categories. However, caution
  is no excuse for continuing to ignore altogether what amounts to a major problem
  of cultural history.
  The identification of a silver
  incense burner closely matched in the rendition of metal models by the sculptors
  of the Persepolis bas-reliefs and carrying the name of an Iranian owner, added
  in Lydia after completion, provides a starting point for an investigation that
  will have to be carried out for decades to come. It is in all probability the
  first identifiable case of an object exported from Iran to Lydia.
  A quick glance at several vessels
  which came out of Anatolia gives an idea of the range of other objects that
  justify speculation on their origin, probably Iranian in some cases, probably
  local in others, and demonstrably so regarding one or two. Irritating as the
  uncertainty may be concerning individual cases, the overall picture that emerges
  is that of an International Achaemenid style with regional nuances. At this
  stage, investigation of the subject is bound to take the form of questions
  rather than answers.
  1. An Achaemenid Incense Burner
  The incense burner in fig. 1 was on
  view at the Metropolitan Museum from 1980 until 1993, when it was returned to
  Turkey. From the beginning, it was called "Greek."[1]
  A closer look at the facts shows that there is little justification for the
  label.
  Fig.
  1. Silver incense burner of the Persepolitan type (left) and detail of the
  Persepolitan basrelief shown in fig. 2 (right). Iran, early 5th century
  BCE Photos: Melikian-Chirvani. (Click
  to enlarge)
  When Dietrich von Bothmer, the
  eminent curator now retired from the Department of Greek and Roman Art,
  published it in 1980 as part of a supposedly "Greek and Roman
  Treasury," he briefly mentioned its resemblance to two incense burners
  represented at Persepolis, adding in the same breath that "the same model
  much closer to the silver specimens [sic] is painted on a Clazomenian sherd
  preserved in Athens.”[2]
  Regrettably, the art historian neither illustrates the sherd,nor does he make
  any reference to its whereabouts. As it is, the silver incense burner in fig. 1
  could hardly be "closer" to the models represented four times in
  variants of the same scene at Persepolis, the king enthroned giving audience
  (fig. 2; fig. I, right).[3]
  The similarity is so obvious that it might inspire doubts concerning the
  authenticity of the silver piece, were it not for the appearance of the metal.
  The surface displays entirely convincing areas of oxidisation as well as the
  kind of minute scratches to be observed on properly excavated material when
  examined under a magnifying glass. No questions appear to have been raised by
  any of the scholars or collectors who have seen and handled the object.
  What first springs to the eye is
  the structural similarity. A tall stand with tapering incurving walls, that
  calls to mind the image of a trumpet resting on its mouth, supports a
  bowl-shaped receptacle topped by a stepped conical cover. Close to the top,
  below the receptacle, a compressed knop is partly concealed in the bas-relief
  specimens by a small parasol-like element. There is no such piece on the silver
  object. Whether this parasol-like fixture is now missing because it was lost, or
  whether none
  Fig.
  2. Detail from a bas-relief formerly in the Treasury Room, Persepolis, now
  in the Muze-ye Iran Bastan, Tehran, ca. 487-480 BCE (Click
  to enlarge)
  was ever supplied is uncertain.
  A smaller detail bears out the
  general similarity in construction. In the bas-relief models, an oval lug below
  the knop, shaped as a duck head pointed downwards, holds a chain that links it
  to the top part of the cover. On the silver incense burner, precisely the same
  type of lug is seen. It holds the remains of a broken chain[4]
  which, when intact, no doubt linked the stand to the top of the cover. This
  parallel bears out in passing the fact that the cock perched on the floral
  chalice did not originally belong with the object. The projecting chalice would
  have clumsily caught the hanging chain.
  By contrast with the close
  similarity that the silver incense burner bears to the Persepolis
  representation, a glance at a recent typological study of a large number of
  incense burners on stands by Bernard Goldman is enough to show that the
  Persepolis models and the silver incense burner stand apart, in a class of their
  own, with marked differences from all the other types recorded so far.[5]
  They are variants of one and the same type that may be characterized as the
  imperial Achaemenid model.
  The similarity in construction is
  matched by the similarity in decoration. Precisely the same kind of horizontal
  grooving may be seen on the trumpet-shaped stand in the silver object and in its
  carved rendition. This device occurs repeatedly in imperial precious metal
  vessels of the Achaemenid period. It may be seen on a series of objects
  represented at Persepolis. They include wine beakers, wine bowls and buckets.[6]
  Some of the most famous vessels long recognized as Iranian display this type of
  grooving. They include, among others, the large silver drinking horn with a goat
  head from the Seven Brothers' Barrow and a gold bowl with lion-shaped handles
  from Siberia, both in the Hermitage, as well as a gold jug from the so-called
  Oxus Treasure in the British Museum.[7]
  Fig.
  3. Detail of the silver incense burner stand showing the Lydian
  inscription incised on the splayed foot, datable to around the first half
  of the 6th century BCE (Click
  to enlarge)
  A second ornamental feature is
  never found in Greek metalwork. It consists of staggered rows of arrow-shaped
  openings, which are quintessentially Iranian.[8]
  Their arrangement is the same in the silver object and on the models carved in
  the Persepolis relief. In both cases, none appear on the lowest and broadest
  step. This follows functional logic. As the silver incense burner shows, the
  lowest step is vertical in order to fit the vertical rim of the bowlshaped
  receptacle. No openings are required because the rim itself is not pierced.
  I have left aside the finial
  designed as a cock perched on a floral blossom. At first glance, it would seem
  to have been welded to the top part of the cover as a result of the corrosive
  process, indicating that it was fitted to it prior to burial. However, it does
  not sit well on the stepped cover. The chalice projects well beyond the
  flattened top and would have been a slight hindrance when fixing the chain. In
  short, it has every appearance of being a later addition which might have been
  made when an inscription was summarily incised on the foot in archaic
  "Greek" capitals.
  This inscription, written in the
  Lydian language, was the object of an extensive epigraphical and philological
  commentary from Roberto Gusmani.[9]
  It reads artymalim, "(I) am of Artimas." The distinguished
  linguist notes that the letters include "the rare sign Ì,
  which we know as a variant for I (i)" and adds: "the dating put
  forward for the object (around the second half of the sixth century BCE) would
  appear to be borne out from the standpoint of the development of Lydian
  writing." Such a conclusion is broadly consistent with the Persepolis
  parallel-the Treasury and the Palace of Xerxes, which points to a date some time
  in the late sixth or early fifth century BCE[10]
  Neither Gusmani nor von Bothmer
  find time to specify that the inscription is an addition. It is incised, rather
  clumsily, on the splayed foot in an area where no inscription was ever intended
  (fig. 3).
  Who was Artimas? Ferdinand Justi
  entered the name in his Dictionary of Iranian Names (Iranisches Namenbuch) as
  early as 1895, quoting the interpolation found in the Anabasis by Xenophon which
  names one Artimas among the apxovieq of Cyrus the Younger, i.e., the satraps or
  satraps-in-charge in Anatolia. This would have been around 401-400 BCE[11]
  Fig.
  4, 5. Deatails of the bronze incense burner in the Achaemenid style.
  Probably Iran, late 6th-early 5th century BCE
  Photos: Melikian-Chirvani. (Click
  to enlarge)
  A. D. H. Bivar has convincingly
  argued that a seal in the Imperial Achaemenid style inscribed to the name of one
  "Artym," the Aramaic form of Greek Artimas, was executed for the man
  named Artimas in the Anabasis interpolation.[12]
  The seal (now known only from an electrotype of an original that has been lost
  sight of since the nineteenth century) bears out the nature of his office. Under
  the typical symbol of imperial Achaemenid authority which is cut on the stone,
  the inscription is in Aramaic, the chancery language of the Empire. Aramaic was
  not used locally either in Lydia or in neighboring Lycia. The symbol of
  authority held by Artimas must therefore have been granted from the central seat
  of Achaemenid power, leaving little doubt that he held the high office of the
  king's deputy, whether as a satrap or a satrap in-charge, in 401-400 BCE
  His name is Iranian. Linguists who
  held diverging views on the subject no longer doubt this.[13]
  The earlier Artimas who had his name incised on the silver incense burner, some
  time in the second half of the sixth century BCE, held equally high office. That
  is established by the very occurrence of his name on the incense burner, a
  utensil used in imperial rites, in the emperor's presence only, if we are to
  judge from the visual evidence of the Persepolis bas-reliefs. In all likelihood,
  the owner of the incense burner was the ancestor of the Anabasis Artimas (and,
  probably, imperial seal holder) and thus the first in a dynastic succession of
  satraps of which Harpagos of Xanthos provides a parallel instance.[14]
  Whatever the case may be concerning
  the family line of Artimas, the inscription of an Iranian name in Lydian on an
  incense burner of pure Persepolitan type some time around 500 BCE makes an
  import from Iran highly probable. The satrap could have taken it with him to
  Lydia, or it could have been dispatched from Iran as an imperial token-we will
  never know. The inscription in Lydian was, by definition, intended to identify
  the owner to Lydian speakers, suggesting that the silver piece may have been in
  the care of court ceremony attendants. If reserved for the satrap's exclusive
  use, just as the Persepolis incense burners seem to have been for royal use
  only, such an inscription would have answered a practical necessity.
  The importance of the silver
  incense burner is enhanced by the discovery of a bronze incense burner which
  came to the Metropolitan Museum as part of "one of the different East Greek
  treasures acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1966 and 1976"
  (figs. 4, 5).[15]
  Nothing remotely connects the object with Greece. The bronze incense burner
  displays, again, typically Iranian features, all consistent with an attribution
  to Achaemenid Iran. Together, the two incense burners illustrate the use of
  fundamental modules by Achaemenid metalwork designers to produce very
  different-looking objects merely by varying the secondary features.
  Fig.
  6. Silver phiale in the Achaemenid style. Iran or Lydia (probably the
  latter?). Sketch: Melikian-Chirvani. (Click
  to enlarge)
  Here, two fundamental modules are
  part of the overall construction. They are the squat bowl-shaped receptacle, an
  age-old type, and the cover shaped as a stepped circular pyramid truncated at
  the top to make way for a finial. The receptacle is riveted and welded to a
  short horizontal handle shaped like a pike. The extremity linking it with the
  bowl is chamfered, as is the bud finial on top of the cover. Into this handle
  fits a very long shaft with ring-like ribbing. The shaft is terminated at the
  other end with a calf's head.
  For further strengthening, the
  horizontal handle is attached through hot soldering to the rounded sides of the
  bowl by two short rods ending with duck heads curving back in opposite
  directions. Finally, the figure of a leaping calf, turning its head back, joins
  the horizontal handle and the stepped cover. Its hind legs fit on either side of
  a hinging plate rising from the handle and its front legs are riveted into the
  second step of the cover.
  The handling of the animal heads is
  typical of Achaemenid art. The small calf protome at the end of the shaft has
  well-rounded eyeballs delineated by a raised fillet, a standard feature in
  Achaemenid animal sculpture.[16]
  So, too, is the thick rounded molding over the eye.[17]
  Not least, the leaping calf is typically Iranian. This applies to the very idea
  of using the figure of an animal raised on its hind legs and turning its head
  away from the object to link two sections of it, as is also the case with
  Achaemenid vase-like rhyta.[18]
  And, as with the protome, the stylization of the calf's head is purely Iranian,
  with its eyeballs tending towards a triangular shape delineated by a fillet. The
  curving S-like attachments ending with duck heads find their closest parallels
  in a gray stone tray from a group of stone objects found in the Persepolis
  Treasury.[19]
  Figs.
  7, 8. Bronze phiale. Achaemenid style and period. Iran, 6th-5th century
  BCE Paris art market (1979/, coming from Iran. Note the dealer's mark, now
  removed by cleaning. Private
  collection, London. Unpublished. Photos: Melikian-Chirvani.(Click
  to enlarge)
  All these secondary features
  independently point to the same conclusion as the use of an identical primary
  module for the receptacle. The bronze incense burner is an Achaemenid-style
  artefact of Iranian or, possibly, Lydian make. Until proven otherwise, the first
  assumption may be retained as the most likely.
  This, too, is a piece of utmost
  importance. It is an early forerunner of the metal incense burner attached to a
  horizontal handle which was later to enjoy considerable fortune in Iran .[20]
  One of the two fundamental modules
  used for the silver and the bronze incense burner, i.e., the stepped conical
  cover cut off at the top, reproduces an age-old architectural form which goes
  back to the Elamite ziggurats of southern Iran.[21]
  It survived in vernacular architecture as a standard form of icehouse.[22]
  2. The Achaemenid Style in Western
  Anatolian Silver
  Other objects in the "Greek
  and Roman Treasury" require a similar reconsideration. They can be
  recognized to be Achaemenid in design at a glance.
  This applies to a series of small
  shallow bowls with diameters ranging between 16 and 17.5 centimeters. Four
  standard types are all matched by near-identical specimens which turned up by
  the dozen on the Tehran art market throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
  Fig.
  9. Bronze phiale. Achaemenid style and period. Iran, 6th-5th century
  BCE Note the ancient repair near the rim. Unpublished. Photo:
  Melikian-Chirvani. (Click
  to enlarge)
  A highly distinctive type is
  decorated with lotus petals in high relief, numbering from six to eleven,
  pointed towards the center (fig. 6). In the intervals, slender narrow lotus
  leaves are pointed towards the outside and topped by lotus blossoms. A central
  boss, which Hellenists like to call an omphalos, is salient inside. In the
  publication A Greek and Roman Treasury, four bowls of that type are
  referred to as "the socalled Achaemenian type.”[23]
  A typical Iranian example which virtually matches a piece in the Metropolitan
  Museum presented by Walter Hauser in 1937, after returning from Iran, is the
  unpublished bowl illustrated here in figs. 7, 8.[24]
  Endless variants concerning the proportions of the lotus blossoms, buds and
  leaves are in existence. An exhaustive typological classification of this vast
  body of material has yet to see the light of day. There is no way at present of
  determining for sure whether the four silver pieces were imported from Iran or
  made in
  Anatolian ateliers in the
  Achaemenid fashion. But there is no doubt as to the time when they were
  disseminated throughout the Middle East under Achaemenid political control. As
  noted by several writers, the general type appears on Achaemenid levels as far
  afield as Iraq, Syria and Palestine.[25]
  A revealing case is
  that of the cemetery for Iranian
  soldiers at Deve-Hoyuk on the Turkish-Syria border where small phialae were the
  most common object found in the graves of Iranian soldiers.[26]
  There could be no better Iranian signature to the fashion for objects of this
  type, nor a clearer indication as to the way in which they first spread-through
  Iranians stationed throughout the Empire.
  A second type represented by two
  variants among the shallow silver bowls in the "Greek and Roman
  Treasury" is decorated with narrow radiating grooves lightly impressed,
  their rounded extremities emphasized by incised arcs which form a continuous
  scalloped line.[27] Inside, the usual small
  boss/omphalos in low relief is generally to be seen. Both variants have
  appeared, mostly in repousse bronze /copper?/ sheet, in such large numbers on
  the Iranian market that to question the Iranian provenance of those would be
  absurd.[28]
  Fig.
  10. Silver phiale with gilt molding. Probably Lydia, ca. 5th century BCE
  Private collection. Photo: Melikian-Chirvani. (Click
  to enlarge)
  Fig.
  11. Underside of silver phiale. (Click
  to enlarge)
  A third basic type has a different
  profile designed with a continuous curve starting from the central boss. The low
  sides rise gently upwards on the outside and are cut off short by a flat rim. In
  the central area there is a raised boss larger in diameter and definitely more
  salient, framed by a molding from which it is separated by a narrow undecorated
  strip. Engraved around the molding are narrow short grooves with rounded
  extremities. As with all the others, there are variants to the type concerning
  the size of the boss and the decoration, or the lack of it, around it and on it.
  The type, represented in the "Greek and Roman Treasury" by a silver
  specimen, is described as "the pure Greek shape" by von Bothmer.[29] It actually surfaced a
  number of times in the Tehran market with a "Luristan" label attached
  to it. An unpublished example (fig. 9) gives an idea of
  one of the common variants.[30]
  There is some reason for assuming
  that a fourth type of shallow wine bowl represented here by a hitherto
  unrecorded piece (figs. 10, 11) has the same Anatolian provenance as the
  previous types.[31] According to its present
  owner, it was acquired in the London trade at the time when pieces from the
  "Greek and Roman Treasury" were being negotiated, and it has very much
  the same feel in the hand. While neither fact can be accepted as evidence, this
  seems too much of a coincidence to be ignored. A single rib which is gilt
  isolates the evened lip from the well. There is no decoration on the sides other
  than the horizontal fluting. On the underside, a nine-lobed rosette is engraved
  (fig. 11).
  A fifth type, often with a small
  diameter of opening varying from 8 to 12 centimeters, has a deep, rounded well
  curving over the bottom and topped by a broad, short, outcurving neck. It is
  represented in the "Greek and Roman Treasury" by a silver specimen
  found in Sardis, the Lydian capital, by the American archaeological expedition.[32]
  An object of virtually identical profile can be seen on the northern stairway of
  the Apadana at Persepolis.[33]
  The type is known in light red pottery found in Samarkand, in the northeastern
  corner of Achaemenid Iran, and among the bronze vessels that surfaced on the
  Tehran market in the 1960s.[34]
  It is, yet again, an object in the International Achaemenid styleGreek is
  definitely not the word.
  A second class of objects in the
  so-called "Greek and Roman Treasury" is Achaemenid in appearance. It
  includes two small vase-like beakers with fluted bodies topped by tall everted
  necks.[35]
  Body and neck are marked off by a single molding, ribbed in one case, plain in
  the other with clusters of parallel incisions. One of the two has a curving
  bottom and therefore needed a stand to rest on, as do some Achaemenid vase-rhyta
  of similar design excepting the handles and openings which their function
  requires.[36]
  The other, with a narrow flat base, calls for comparison with two vase-rhyta
  represented in the Persepolis reliefs (fig. 12)[37]
  They have little in common with Greece and owe all their more obvious
  characteristics to the art of Achaemenid Iran-the profile, the vertical
  grooving, even the types of moldings separating the ovoid body from the tall
  everted neck.[38] The four single incisions
  on one molding (which could be an addition in any case) are too insignificant to
  give the vase-shaped beaker a flavor of its own.
  Fig.
  12. Silver beaker. Achaemenid style and period, late 6th-5th century BCE
  Sketch: Melikian-Chirvani. (Click
  to enlarge)
  Fig.
  13. Fragmentary beaker, burnished earthenware. Found in the Masjed-a Jame'
  at Qazvin. Unpublished. Photo: Melikian-Chirvani. (Click
  to enlarge)
  Not least, it should be added that
  the idea of small vase-shaped beakers ties in with a long tradition in Iran
  known from the hundreds of north and northwestern Iranian pottery types that
  await publication. Many distinctly point to metallic prototypes. In order to
  illustrate the general point, I reproduce in fig. 13 an unpublished vase-shaped
  beaker missing almost half its body broken off vertically. It came to light in
  the course of digging in a corner of the Masjed-e Jame` in Qazvin, where I
  photographed it by gracious permission of the mosque authorities. Too little is
  known about northwestern burnished gray ware to allow more than a guess
  regarding its precise date. Without elaborating, I venture to suggest a dating
  not later than the seventh to sixth century BCE at the outside.
  It is from such a background that
  the silver vase-shaped beakers are descended. In short, they certainly belong to
  Achaemenid art. But is it Achaemenid art from Iran or Achaemenid art from Lydia?
  3. The Case for a Lydian School of
  Achaemenid Silver
  Such a question raises a broader
  issue: Was there a Lydian atelier working in the Achaemenid style where part or
  even all the vessels discussed so far might have been produced? The conditions
  for creating gold and silver vessels were gathered in Lydia. Massive
  installations for separating gold from silver have been excavated on the east
  bank of the Pactolus[39]
  Moreover, we know that Lydians from the capital Sardis were engaged in working
  stone and wood at Susa in Iran, to build the palace of Darius the Great in pure
  Achaemenid style.[40]
  Other Lydians may just as well have been engaged in producing Achaemenid- style
  silver wares in the capital. It is equally conceivable that the Median craftsmen
  who travelled to Susa should have been called in to work at Sardis. This being
  the case, what criteria can be found to justify the attribution of some pieces
  to a Lydian atelier rather than one located within Iran?
  Fig.
  14. Bronze wine bowl. Achaemenid style and period. Iran. Unpublished.Photo:
  Melikian-Chirvani. (Click
  to enlarge)
  The short answer is that, for the
  time being, too little is known about Achaemenid silver from Iran to allow the
  definition of general criteria. Each case should be judged on its own merits,
  and only an educated guess can be submitted.
  As has been noted, the addition of
  a Lydian inscription to an object thoroughly Persepolitan in appearance, the
  silver incense burner, strongly speaks for an import. Until proof to the
  contrary comes to light, it should be given an Iranian label. Whether the four
  bowls (see fig. G) with nine lotus buds on the underside were similarly
  imported, or executed in Anatolia, is harder to determine. The combined shape
  and decoration are both idiosyncratic and indistinguishable in design from the
  many Iranian bronze models (figs. 7, 8). Judgment must be suspended until,
  perhaps, spectral analysis and other technical tests bring new evidence, to say
  nothing of excavations. The small silver vase-shaped beakers with rounded bottom
  and flat bottom (fig. 12) fall into much the same category.[41]
  They have an unmitigated Achaemenid look.
  This, however, does not per se
  preclude local production, whether in the case of the bowls or of the
  vase-shaped beakers. Pottery in the Achaemenid style was produced in Sardis for
  household use prior to 213 BCE An earthenware bowl found in the course of the
  Sardis excavations is a potter's version of the unpublished Achaemenid bronze
  bowl which I photographed in Tehran in 1971 (fig. 14).[42]
  Such pieces were probably turned out, in the early stages at least, for Persian
  residents whose presence in the Lydian capital is abundantly attested.[43]
  One would expect silver ware in the Achaemenid style to have been likewise
  executed for the Persian aristocracy, conceivably in mixed workshops with
  Iranians (Medians?) and Lydians working together.
  Fig.
  15. Silver jug. Achaemenid style and period. Probably Lydia, ca. 5th
  century BCE Sketch: Melikian-Chirvani. (Click to enlarge)
  The next step would have been the
  development of an Achaemenid style with some distinctive variations, however
  slight-the Lydian Achaemenid style as distinct from the International Achaemenid
  style. There is some evidence of such a development. In A Greek and Roman
  Treasury, von Bothmer illustrates two small silver wine jugs with typical
  Achaemenid shapes. One, with a flat circular base and rounded sides, is topped
  by a broad neck curving out slightly.[44]
  The cyma-shaped handle, which is chamfered, ends with a lion's head that bites
  the rim. The attachment plate soldered to the body is carved in the form of a
  bearded man's face with a pug nose and ears like handles, derived from the
  Egyptian Bes mask. Conceding that "the shape of this jug is more Eastern
  than Greek," von Bothmer thinks that "the sculptural adjuncts of the
  handle-a lion's head above and a head of the Egyptian divinity below-are
  typically Greek.[45]
  "Typically Iranian" would
  be a better way to describe it. The gold jug with pouring lip, only 12.7
  centimeters high, which forms part of the so-called Oxus Treasure acquired in
  present-day Afghanistan, i.e. in the Eastern Iranian world, is a closely
  comparable piece with the same horizontal grooving. There, too, the handle has a
  lion mask biting the rim.[46]
  As for the Bes mask, it serves as the attachment plate for the famous pair of
  winged ibexes which were once attached to a now-missing Achaemenid vase-rhyton.
  One handle is now in Berlin, the other in the Louvre, in Paris.[47]
  In short, the lion's head and the
  Bes mask, far from contradicting an attribution to the "East," would,
  on the contrary, bear out what the shape irresistibly suggests, an Iranian
  provenance.
  The one reason for considering the
  possibility of an alternative attribution, albeit not to Greece, lies in the
  aesthetic handling of the lion's head and the Bes figure. Iconography is one
  thing, style is another. There is nothing quite like the cartoon-like
  interpretation of the lion's head whether in the Achaemenid repertoire from
  Iran, or in Greek art for that matter. The substitution of dotted lines executed
  with a drill to the ribbing normally found on a snarling lion's head in
  Achaemenid style has no published parallel. It may either be accounted for by a
  gap in time or by a difference in regional provenance. At this stage, we have no
  inkling as to the variations which may or may not have existed in Achaemenid art
  produced within Iranian lands. Nor do we know much about stylistic evolution in
  metal vessels in the two centuries that followed the downfall of the Achaemenid
  Empire. The possibility of an attribution to a non-Iranian area within the
  boundaries of the Empire such as Lydia may therefore be considered as one of
  several plausible explanations for the handling of the lion's head and the mask
  of Bes. A more definite statement would be too adventurous for now.
  Fig.
  16. Bronze incense burner. Probably Achaemenid period.
  Anatolia (Lydia?), 6th-5th century s.c. The Menil Collection. Unpublished.
  Photo: Melikian-Chirvani.
  (Click
  to enlarge)
  Fig.
  17. Detail of fig. 16. Bronze incense burner probably of the Achaemenid
  period. Anatolia~Lydia?/,
  6th-5th century BCE. Photo: Melikian. (Click
  to enlarge)
  A similar set of arguments applies
  to the silver jug with pouring lip published by von Bothmer, but speaks more
  strongly in favour of the Lydian hypothesis (fig. 15).[48]
  Surprisingly, the learned scholar mentioned the Oxus Treasure gold jug once when
  discussing the Metropolitan jug-in another publication-but disregarded the
  inferences to be drawn from the parallel.[49]
  The silver jug with pouring lip is remarkably close in profile to the Oxus gold
  jug and is of roughly the same size. Both share the same horizontal grooving and
  almost the same type of arched handle. On the silver handle, simple chamfering
  gives way to longitudinal grooving (in other words, the vertical facets on the
  handle are concave, not flat/. The three narrow moldings at the base and top are
  not sufficiently characteristic to suggest anything. What is highly distinctive
  is the head of a bird (?) reduced to quasi-abstraction which terminates the
  upper section of the handle and bites the lip of the rim. Nothing comparable has
  been recorded in Iranian metalwork. Von Bothmer observes that "similar
  stylized animal heads appear on Lydian bronzes" and, yet again, stops short
  of making the inference.[50]
  Taking his word for it, such an observation strengthens the case for the
  attribution of the jug with pouring lip to a Lydian atelier producing vessels in
  the imperial Achaemenid taste with very slight variations.
  The atelier, obviously working for
  the entourage of the Achaemenid satrap in the capital Sardis, would have been
  the source of pieces such as the silver bowl found in Sardis mentioned above.
  An incense burner on stand with a
  stepped circular conical cover which was excavated at Ikiztepe in Gure on the
  Hermus, not far from Usak, provides a different case altogether. Machteld J.
  Mellink first published it through the courtesy of the Turkish archaeologist
  Burhan Tezcan, who excavated the site after tomb looters had started quarrying
  it.[51]
  She calls it "Persian." William E. Mierse, drawing up a list of
  Iraniantype objects excavated in Lydia, mentions the Ikiztepe piece as one of
  several "silver incense burners similar to those shown carried by figures
  in the procession reliefs at Persepolis.”[52]
  The Ikiztepe incense burner is related to the Persepolitan models and to the
  "Greek and Roman Treasury" piece in conception only. The stand has a
  splayed base, incurving and tapering as it goes up to support the bowl-shaped
  receptacle. The cover resembles, up to a point, the Persepolitan model with
  which it shares exactly the same number of receding platforms and a finial in
  the form of a blossom.
  But there are considerable
  differences. The proportions are modified. The stand is lower and squatter and a
  molding (with vertical ribbing) appears halfway up, not just under the
  receptacle. The decoration is even further removed. The horizontal grooving, so
  prominent-on the Persepolis models and the incense burner once owned by Artimas,
  gives way to a plain ground with just two bands of zigzag lines below the
  molding, and one band above. Dots executed with a drill serve to mat the ground
  between the triangles pointed downwards (which stand for sun rays, as I have
  indicated elsewhere and plan to show in greater detail). On the cover,
  arrowopenings appear in one tier out of two in the tiers other than the one
  coming over the raised rim of the bowl. These arrows have a very narrow shaft,
  unlike the Persepolitan ones. In short, the Ikiztepe incense burner either
  belongs to quite another Iranian school of metalwork than the "Greek and
  Roman Treasury" piece or, much more likely, illustrates an aspect of the
  Lydian workshop production that drew upon Iranian design without in the least
  attempting to copy it. It suggests a different workshop from those that might
  have created the pieces discussed so far. One might speculate that while these
  reflect the main satrapal production within the mainstream of the International
  Achaemenid style following designs by Iranian artists or sent from Iran, the
  latter represents an original production only loosely linked with the Iranian
  model.
  An unpublished incense burner in
  the Menil Collection, in Houston, probably belongs in the same category (figs.
  16, 17). There is no exact equivalent to the bronze vessel with its tripod shaft
  supporting a low bowl-shaped receptacle topped by a stepped conical cover.[53]
  In conception, the construction of the latter matches that of the receptacle of
  the bronze incense burner (figs. 4, 5) found in Western Anatolia. What is
  entirely original is the idea of the small stylized birds perched on the
  "thighs" of the tripod and, above all, of the three felines with
  averted heads supporting the bowl. Their stylization points to a
  well-established independent school of metalwork design. The finial on the flat
  top, which is a cock, instantly calls to mind the cock added to the silver
  incense burner. This suggests a possible Lydian provenance for the Menil piece.
  In any case, it illustrates a regional school of metalwork drawing upon the
  International Achaemenid style.
  Fig
  18. Detail of fig. 1. Silver incense burner of the Persepolitan type.
  Iran, early 5th century BCE Photo: Melikian. (Click
  to enlarge)
  From Lydia, the taste for
  Achaemenid-style silver may have spread westward. Artists in this westernmost
  part of Anatolia were looking at Iranian metalwork and very broadly drawing
  their inspiration from it. Such is the implication of the incense burner on
  stand of "Persepolitan type" according to von Bothmer which is
  illustrated on a Clazomenian pottery sherd preserved in Athens. The Ionian city
  of Clazomenae (Klazomenai), which lies seventy-five miles in a beeline west of
  Sardis, could be reached within a day by horse. We have Xenophon's word for it.
  When the Achaemenid satrap Tissaphernes had Alcibiades arrested and jailed in
  Sardis, the Greek commander soon made his escape. He "managed to find
  horses and got away by night to Clazomenae," as Xenophon soberly reports in
  his Hellenica.[54]
  The Clazomenian sherd suggests that the artists of the Sardis area had seen
  incense burners of the Persepolitan type. They represented incense burners
  incorporating Persepolitan features with Hellenic elements such as the cover.
  And sketching is the initial stage in the creative process of metalworking. The
  exchange process seems to have worked in both directions. "A Greek and
  Roman Treasury" contains a number of pieces that are not really
  "Greek" but incorporate Greek elements in their shape or in their
  decoration, pointing to the existence of a Lydian Greek silver style, just as
  there was a Lydian Achaemenid style. Indeed, some give the impression of having
  come out of the same hands as the "Lydian Achaemenid style" pieces.[55]
  Specialists of Greek metalwork and Greek ornament will be in a better position
  to assess the degree to which the Lydian goldsmiths innovated. Such versatility
  may explain how Lydian culture disappeared. Borrowed clothes suited them so well
  that eventually the Lydians lost their own.
  4. Achaemenid- Style Silver in
  Armenia
  The Lydian school of Achaemenid
  metalwork was only one of several cases in the broader Anatolian context. To the
  northeast, Phrygia, with its capital Gordion, has yielded an impressive range of
  objects from bronzes to pottery that parallel a similar range in Iran, although
  the two are aesthetically vastly different in style and, indeed, in technique.[56]
  The parallel is striking concerning rhyta which were used, as mentioned earlier,
  in Iranian rites predating Zoroastrianism. The connection appears to have been
  established early on, before the advent of the Achaemenid Empire. Knowing more
  about the extent and the nature of the cultural and religious connections,
  probably inherited from a distant Indo-European past to which such parallels
  point, might help understand the background to later artistic developments.
  Much further east, historical
  Armenia has been the source of a very substantial amount of the metalwork so far
  recorded in Western literature as "Achaemenid" without further
  investigation. Like Lydia, it is likely both to have imported and to have
  produced metalwork in the Persian taste. Xenophon tells us in the Anabasis that
  when the Greek soldiers plundered the tent of the Achaemenid satrap governor (hyparchos)
  of western Armenia called Tiribazos, they carried off among other things
  "beds with silver legs" (klinai argyro podes) and
  "bowls" (ekpomata).[57]
  Such legs are actually known, if not from Armenia, at least from neighboring
  Georgia.[58] The problem concerning
  the Armenian finds is the same as with the objects from Lydia. Must these be
  assumed to have been imports from Iran, or were they commissioned locally? We
  may never be able to answer that question for sure. But the huge production of
  silver and bronze wares in the previous Urartian period and, in later times, to
  which the Turkish scholar Oktay Belli has recently drawn attention, makes
  continued production a quasi -certainty.[59]
  Several of the British Museum
  "Achaemenid" silver vessels, all published by O. M. Dalton, came to
  light in Armenia. A large silver phiale with a lotus chalice radiating from the
  center up to stylized lotus blossoms was found "near Erzingan" (Erzincan
  on Turkish maps), and a similar dish also from Armenia has been in the Louvre
  since 1902.[60]
  A silver rhyton with the foreparts of a mythical animal associating the head of
  an eagle and the horns of a goat was found "at Erzingan."[61]
  Three silver bowls, with a deep curving well and outcurving everted sides, were
  dug up in Armenia, from an unspecified site (fig. 19).[62]
  They reproduce a standard Iranian profile. An unpublished bowl worked in
  repousse from a bronze (copper?) sheet photographed in Tehran in 1973 is
  reproduced in fig. 20 for comparison[63].
  Other finds were made in Armenia in
  recent times. Most important are the objects recovered from Arin-Berd on the
  outskirts of Erevan, the capital of present-day Armenia.[64]
  One rhyton of the drinking horn type is quite remarkable. A human figure wearing
  a cap superficially resembling the Persian headdress is seen riding the
  foreparts of a horse which forms the protome.[65]
  The costume is Persian, but the handling of the figure is very different from
  Achaemenid sculpture as we know it from Persepolis. The man sits stiffly and
  looks stockier.
  Fig.
  19. Silver wine bowl. Achaemenid style and period. Armenia. The British
  Museum. Sketch: Melikian-Chirvani.(Click
  to enlarge)
  Fig.
  20. Bronze wine bowl. Achaemenid style and period. Iran, 6th-early 5th
  century BCE Private collection, Tehran (1971). Unpublished. Photo:
  Melikian-Chirvani.
  (Click to enlarge)
  In the absence of any other
  indications, it is reasonable to recognise in it the creation of a regional
  atelier belonging to what may be termed the Armenian Achaemenid school. That
  such a school actually existed has been established by the spectral analysis of
  a gold pectoral showing the ore to have been mined at Zod on the east bank of
  Lake Sevan.[66] Miss S. Der Nersessian
  recounts the fact without quite taking the next step, which is to infer the
  existence of an Armenian school producing vessels in the Achaemenid fashion. She
  assumes that the Arin-Berd drinking horn was imported.
  Georgia, which had a
  thousand-year-old tradition of working gold and silver, is also likely to have
  had its school of Achaemenid metalwork. A large number of silver vessels have
  now come to light in Georgian sites, ranging from types that can be matched by
  Achaemenid objects from Iranian finds to others that only look superficially
  Achaemenid. On closer inspection, some of these display features to which no
  parallel can be found in metalwork so far originating from the Tehran market.
  Examples respectively illustrating the Iranian Achaemenid style and a style with
  sui-generis features were found long ago in the Akhal-Gori area.[67]
  A detailed study that Georgian scholars are best equipped to undertake, with
  easy access to their material, much of which remains unpublished, should yield
  interesting insights into developments that must have been very complex in
  nature.
  The reasons that lead to the
  multiplicity of Achaemenid schools will appear more clearly as archaeological
  excavation work progresses.
  Judging from Lydia, by far the
  best-studied area not only in Anatolia but in the whole Achaemenid Empire,
  thanks to the admirable work conducted by the late Hanfmann and his colleague
  Mierse, the presence of significant colonies of Persian residents may well have
  been the prevalent factor. This presence is revealed among other things by a
  religious edict promulgated in 367 BCE by an Iranian satrap called Droaphernes.[68]
  It dedicates a statue of the god Zeus Baradates, an aspect of Ahura Mazda, while
  simultaneously revealing the accelerating Hellenization process. The inscription
  is in Greek, even though dated to the thirty-ninth regnal year of Artaxerxes II
  (405-359 BCE), and the very idea of erecting a statue sharply contrasts with
  Zoroastrian tradition. The proportion of Iranian names, about one-fifth, is
  substantial. No less remarkable is the fact that the Greek stela should have
  survived in the form of a copy of the Roman period, made in the second century
  A.D. Precisely in that century Pausanias observed priests celebrating rites, in
  a language he could not understand, for "the Lydians who call themselves
  Persians."[69]
  These would be the descendants of Persians established prior to the conquest of
  Alexander, implying remarkable continuity in the sense of identity of the
  Persians in Lydia.
  Religion and, more broadly, rituals
  guaranteed their continued use of silver objects-the incense burners, the
  vessels relating to wine libations, which were part of a ritual as far as the
  Iranians were concerned.[70]
  The role of Zoroastrianism in the preservation of symbols is confirmed by the
  frequent occurrence of Ahura Mazda on what Mierse refers to as "the Perso-Lydian
  seals and gold plaques." An admirable pendant reproducing the symbol of
  Ahura Mazda, i.e. the winged disc in gold, with cloisonné enamel and a large
  circular onyx inset serving as the disc, was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum
  with the silver vessels.[71]
  These are purely Iranian in concept and design. They might have been executed by
  Iranian goldsmiths-Medians?-called in for the purpose. As long as there were
  Iranians observing their rites and abiding by their ancestral customs, the
  silver vessels that went with these were bound to follow the same path.
  I wish to convey my deep gratitude
  to Carol Bromberg and Paul Bernard for supplying me with invaluable
  bibliographical references, and in some cases xerox copies of articles to which
  I had no access while immobilized in London. I also wish to thank Oscar
  Muscarella, who most kindly gave me the reference I needed on the Gordion rhyton.
  I am immensely indebted to Dr. Tehrani Moghaddam, director of the Muzeye Meli-e
  Iran for giving me permission to photograph the bas-relief from Persepolis at
  considerable inconvenience to the museum staff, who stood by while the area was
  closed off to the public.
  :
  [1]
  Silver hammered. Significant traces of corrosion. Overall height: 28.2 cm.
  Diameter of base: 10.7-10.8 cm. Diameter of bowl body: 7.15-7.3 cm. D. von
  Bothmer, "Les tresors de la Grece orientale au Metropolitan Museum de
  New York," CRAI ( 1981), pp. 194207. See pp. 199-201 and fig. 5, p.
  200. Henceforth cited as: Von Bothmer, CRAI (1981). This is hardly toned
  down by stating once, p. 210, that "the duckheads and the cock . . .
  bear out the hypothesis of a workshop in a city in Eastern Greece in contact
  with Lydia and the Persian empire." The last two words make little
  sense if the incense burner is considered to date from the second half of
  the sixth century B.C., or even early fifth century. The westernmost parts
  of Anatolia had been incorporated with the Persian empire. The most
  up-to-date discussion of the political situation at that time will be found
  in T. Petit, "L'integration des cites ioniennes dans 1'empire
  achemenide (VIe siecle)," REA 87 (1985.1-2), pp. 4352. The conquest of
  Asia Minor, after the fall of Sardis (Persian Sparda, Lydian Sfardak), is
  completed by 544 and until 479 "Ionia was part of the Persian
  empire" (p. 44). What is "Eastern Greece" if not Ionia?
  Published a second time by von Bothmer in A Greek and Roman Treasury (repr.
  from the BMMA [summer, 1984]). Henceforth cited as: Von Bothmer, Greek
  Treasury. D. G. Mitten, "Lydia in the Achaemenian Period," in
  "Tenth Achaemenid History Workshop" (papers presented April 6-8,
  1990, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), pp. 78-81, expresses the
  conviction that "the richly varied group of silver vessels, utensils
  and jewelry acquired by the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and exhibited for
  several years" comes from a tomb at Ikiztepe. Mitten ignores entirely
  von Bothmer's articles on the subject. I am greatly indebted for this
  reference to Carol Bromberg.
  [2]
  Von Bothmer, CRAI (1981), p. 200. The scholar apparently had in mind the
  fragment in the National Museum in Athens, which was illustrated by J.
  Charbonneaux, R. Martin and F. Villard, Archaic Greek Art /New York, 1971),
  fig. 102. The profile is too different to justify a point-by-point
  refutation (the trumpet-shaped stand has a very different curvature; there
  are two thick knops, not one at the top; there is no stepped cover, no lug
  and chain, etc.).
  [3]
  E. F. Schmidt, Persepolis, 3 vols. (Chicago, 19531970/, vol. 1, pl. 97-A and
  B (Throne Hall; eastern doorway in northern hall/, with close-ups in pls. 98
  and 99; pl. 121 (Treasury, southern relief, now in Tehran; pls. 122, 123
  (eastern relief). In each case the incense burners are seen flanking the
  throne slightly ahead of us. Henceforth cited as: Schmidt, Persepolis. For
  easily accessible reproductions, R. Ghirshman, Perse: ProtoIraniens, Medes,
  Achemenides (Paris, 1963) fig. 254, p.204, and fig. 255, pp. 205-6 (=
  Schmidt, vol. 1, pl. 121). Ghirshman refers to the incense burners as two
  fire altars ("deux autels du feu") (p. 205). Henceforth cited as:
  Ghirshman (1963).
  [4]
  Judging from published photographs, the models depicted at Persepolis reveal
  two types of chains. The southern relief from the Treasury now in Tehran
  (Schmidt, Persepolis, vol. 1, p. 121; [here, figs. 1 and 2, p. 112] has
  twisted rings suggestive of the digit "8"). The eastern doorway in
  the northern wall of the Throne Hall (general view pl. 97-A and B; close-ups
  pls. 98 and 99) distinctly show oval ("O"-shaped) rings linking
  with each other at a right angle: this is the type of chain that remains on
  the silver incense burner.
  [5]
  B. Goldman, "Persian Domed Turibula," Stlr 20.2 (1991), pp.
  179-88. Goldman makes no reference to the silver incense burner.
  [6]
  Two beakers: Schmidt, Persepolis, vol. 1, pl. 416, showing a man carrying a
  beaker in each of his raised hands (detail in vol. 3, pl. 70-B). Behind him,
  another man carries two wine bowls, one with horizontal grooving on the
  lower body (detail vol. 3, pl. 70-C). The cylindrical incense (?) pail with
  slightly tapering walls carried by the attendants represented in the
  Treasury scene where the incense burners appear (Schmidt, Persepolis, vol.
  1, pl. 121) is similarly grooved, as are other pails carried by attendants
  in the palace of Xerxes (pls. 183-A and D, 184-A and B). Vaserhyta with
  vertical grooving are seen on the eastern stairway of the Apadana (pl.
  32-B).
  [7]
  Drinking horn: F. Sarre, Die Kunst des alten persien (Berlin, 1921), pl. 48.
  Gold jug: SPA, pl. 117-D; O. M. Dalton, The Treasure of the Oxus (London,
  19643), no. 17, pl. VII. Henceforth cited as: Dalton. Gold bowl: SPA, pl.
  117-C.8.
  [8]
  These openings are found in pre-Achaemenid art. They continue through
  Parthian times, as in the Parthian palace uncovered at Ashur: SPA, pl.
  128-C.
  [9]
  R. Gusmani, "Ein Weihraucher mit lydischer Inschrift im Metropolitan
  Museum," Kadmos 22 (1983) pp. 56-61. The inscription is given on p. 56.
  [10]
  Schmidt, Persepolis, vol. 1, following Ernst Herzfeld (see pp. 116-17),
  recognizes in this scene the king Darius I and the crown prince Xerxes (p.
  168), which places it between 491 and 486 as the broadest time span,
  probably within the period 487-November 486 (when Darius I died). The Throne
  Hall's construc tion began then under Xerxes and must have been designed
  then (ibid., p. 42).
  [11]
  F. Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch (Marburg, 1895; Hildesheim offset repr.
  1963/, p. 39. See now Xenophon, Anabasis, cr. ed. and trans. P. Marqueray
  (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 19675/, p. 174. Marqueray writes that the
  passage was culled "from some other Anabasis, perhaps the one written
  by Sophenaites."
  [12]
  A. D. H. Bivar, "A 'Satrap' of Cyrus the Younger," NC (London),
  7th ser., 1 (1961), pp. 119-27.
  [13]
  M. Mayrhofer and R. Schmitt, Iranisches Personennamenbuch 5.4 (Vienna,
  1982), p. 30, no. 4, under Iranische Namen im Lydischen, pp. 29-33.).
  [14]).
  [15] Bronze,
  cast. Mirror black patina over extensive areas of the incense burner.
  Overall length: 62.5 cm. Height: 10.9 cm. D. von Bothmer, "An Etruscan
  Bronze in New York," Monuments Piot 61 (1977), pp. 44-53; see pp.
  51-53. See Greek Treasury, no. 69, p. 44, where it is called "Greek,
  sixth century B.C."
  [16] Schmidt,
  Persepolis, vol. 1, pls. 40-B (humped bull), 41-B (camel), 42 (horse, where
  the design of the eye is particularly close to that of the calf's head at
  the end of the bronze shaft, the change in medium [stone to bronze] and size
  notwithstanding). This handling goes back to pre-Achaemenid times. See, for
  example, the figural style on the Luristan beakers ("situlae") of
  the tenth-ninth centuries B.C., SPA, pls. 69-72.
  [17] SPA,
  pls. 77 (Susa bas-reliefs), 108-B (bronze bull); Ghirshman (1963), pl. 269,
  p. 220 (lapis lazuli lion in Tehran).
  [18] Ghirshman
  (1963 ), fig. 220, p. 174 (= Schmidt, vol. 1, pl. 32-B and vol. 3, pl.
  70-D), fig. 222, p. 176 (= Schmidt, vol. 3, pl. 70-F) for the vase-rhyta
  represented at Persepolis. Dozens of examples can be provided.
  [19] E.
  Schmidt, The Treasury of Persepolis (Chicago, 1939), fig. 52, p. 73. For the
  group see Schmidt, Persepolis, vol. 3, pl. 53-1 (footed dish with twelve
  duck-headed handles), pl. 53-2 (rectangular gray stone tray) pl. 53-5 (tray
  of related type with one duckheaded handle).
  [20] Notably
  in Eastern Iran where the early Islamic incense burners reproduce domed
  architectural forms, viz. the shape and proportions of the domes and drums
  of stupas still to be seen in Kabolestan: A. S. MelikianChirvani, "Recherches
  sur 1'architecture de 1'Iran bouddhique I: Essai sur les orgines et le
  symbolisme du stupa iranien," in Le monde iranien et 1'Islam, vol. 3
  (Paris: Societe d'Histoire de 1'Orient, 1975/, pp. 1-61. See pp. 55-58, pls.
  XII-a and XII-b. The latter with its arrow-shaped openings in the rounded
  domes continues, a millennium and a half later, the Achaemenid tradition.
  The tradition spread to India where bronze incense burners with
  square-stepped pyramidal covers have come to light. They float on the art
  market and none, as far as I am aware, has yet been published.
  [21] A.
  Godard, "Voutes iraniennes," Athdr-a 1rdn 4.2 (1949), fig. 196, p.
  229.
  [22] A.
  Parrot, Sumer (Paris, 1960), pl. 42 (ziggurat at Chogha Zanbil).
  [23] Von
  Bothmer, Greek Treasury, p. 26, under no. 21. The remark also applies to no.
  20, both being reproduced on p. 26, and to nos. 28 and 29.
  [24] Unpublished
  piece: surfaced in the Paris art market in 1979 with white paint marks used
  by a Tehran supplier of objects. Apparently cast. Diameter of opening:
  16.2-16.3 cm. For the Metropolitan Museum piece, see O. W. Muscarella,
  Bronze and Iron: Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in the Metropolitan Museum
  of Art (New York, 1988), fig. 326, p. 218. Diameter, as measured by
  Muscarella, 15.2 cm. It "may have been cast."
  [25] Most
  recently by A. C. Gunter, in A. C. Gunter and P. Jett, Ancient Iranian
  Metalwork in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art
  (Washington, 1992), p. 66, in connection with a wine cup (phiale) that
  differs in its detail: reproduced p. 67. A careful study of the various
  types with greater attention paid to details in the design and to proportion
  should be undertaken.
  [26] Ibid.
  [27] Von
  Bothmer, Greek Treasury, no. 23 and no. 24 respectively, both illustrated p.
  26.
  [28] A
  few examples are given here: P. R. S. Moorey, Ancient Persian Bronzes in the
  Adam Collection (London, 1974), nos. 129 and 130, p. 147 (with references to
  other closely resembling vessels which "have been reported from
  Luristan"). P. H. G. Howes Smith, "A Study of 9th-7th Century
  Metal Bowls from Western Asia," IA 21 (1986), pl. IV-4 identified p. 87
  as a "bronze bowl in private collection (allegedly Luristan)." The
  photograph by the unnamed owner is taken from above the bowl showing the
  inside. The marguerite rosette engraved inside around a dotted disc closely
  resembles the Persepolitan rosette. L. Vanden Berghe, "Les pratiques
  funeraires a Page du Fer III au Pusht-i Kuh, Luristan: Les necropoles a
  'Genre War Kabud,' IA 22 (1987), fig. 14, no. 19, p. 260 drawing identified
  p. 245: "item 4 from tomb 4 at Lingah Gaurah" (all transliterated
  place names quoted in this note as spelt by Vanden Berghe). Generally
  speaking, not enough attention is given to all the characteristics of such
  bowls in the various attempts at systematic classification. They must take
  into account the metallurgical handling which includes the type of bronze
  (copper?) sheet employed (thin and light in several of the pieces surfacing
  on the Tehran art market) as well as the proportion, the style of execution
  of secondary details such as the incised fillets (apparently done with
  dividers?), remarkably fine and precise on the Iranian pieces, etc.
  Photographs fail to convey all this and in principle a classification should
  be done only after handling all/most of the pieces.
  [29] Von
  Bothmer, Greek Treasury, no. 27, p. 27 (illustrated), and see caption
  relating to no. 29.
  [30] Raised
  bronze sheet. Diameter of opening 18.35-18.45 cm.
  [31] Apparently
  cast. The rib mercury(?)-gilt. Diameter of opening: 13.7-13.75 cm. Height 6
  cm.
  [32] Von
  Bothmer, Greek Treasury, no. 14. The caption notes "Found in Sardis.
  Greek. Sixth century B.C." in self-contradictory terms. In the sixth
  century B.C., Sardis speaks Lydian and is part of the Achaemenid Empire.
  [33] Schmidt,
  Persepolis, vol. 1, pl. 38-A, center of the procession. The bearers are
  tentatively identified as Ionian Greeks but it must be stressed that no
  stylistic difference is made between the objects brought by bearers from
  different nations.
  [34] R.
  Suleimanov, M. Iskhakov and Sh. Tashkhodzhaev, Drevnii Samarkand (Tashkent,
  1980), color plate facing p. 48, bottom right.
  [35] Von
  Bothmer, Greek Treasury, no. 50 and no. 51, both illustrated p. 38.
  [36] Ghirshman
  (1963), pl. 333, p. 271. This vaserhyton which belonged to Elie Borowski was
  said to have come out of Iran, a fact I have been unable to ascertain. Its
  proportions are close to those of the first vase-shaped beaker I have just
  discussed.
  [37] Schmidt,
  Persepolis, vol. 1, pl. 32-B.
  [38] Schmidt,
  Persepolis, vol. 3. Compare von Bothmer, Greek Treasury, no. 50, with
  Persepolis, pl. 70-D (the grooved vase-rhyta at Persepolis, also with
  vertical ribbing on the molding separating body and neck) and Greek
  Treasury, no. 51, with Persepolis, vol. 3, pl. 70-F.
  [39] A.
  Ramage, S. M. Goldstein and W. Mierse, "Lydian Excavation
  Sectors," in G. M. A. Hanfmann assisted by W. E. Mierse, Sardis from
  Prehistoric to Roman Times (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), pp. 26-52. See pp.
  34-36.
  [40] F.
  Vallat, "Deux nouvelles chartes de fondation," Syria 48.1-2
  (1971), pp. 53-59. See pp. 57-58.
  [41] Von
  Bothmer, Greek Treasury, nos. 50 and 51, illustrated p. 38.
  [42] Mierse,
  "Graves and Cemeteries," p. 126: "discovered in the ruined
  houses of P[actolus] N[orth] below the 213 B.C. destruction layer."
  Reproduced fig. 194, height 5 cm.
  [43] N.
  V. Sekunda, "Achaemenid Colonization in Lydia," REA 87.1-2 (1985),
  pp. 7-30. On the Persian presence in Sardis, see p. 17.
  [44] Von
  Bothmer, Greek Treasury, no. 37, color plates p. 32.
  [45] Ibid.,
  p. 33, under no. 37.
  [46] Dalton,
  no. 17, pl. VII; SPA, pl. 117-D. Identical shapes exist in Iranian pottery,
  of which I do not have photographs at hand.
  [47] SPA,
  pl. 112.
  [48] Von
  Bothmer, Greek Treasury, nos. 50, 51; cf. 38.
  [49] Von
  Bothmer, CRAI (1981 ), p. 201.
  [50] Ibid.,
  p. 33 under no. 38.
  [51] M.
  J. Mellink, "Archaeology in Asia Minor," AJA 71.2 (April, 1967/,
  figs. 20 and 21, pl. 59-writes p. 172: "A Persian incense burner is of
  the type known from reliefs at Persepolis." This assertion, which is
  inaccurate in view of the substantial differences, has been echoed without
  further examination all too often. See latterly N. Sekunda, "Achaemenid
  Settlement in Caria, Lycia and Greater Phrygia," in H.
  Sancisi-Weerdenburg and A. Kuhrt, eds., Achaemenid History VI: Asia Minor
  and Egypt (Leiden, 1991 ), p. 129 referring to AJA 71.
  [52] Mierse,
  "The Satrapal Court," in Sardis, p. 105. No incense burners are
  "carried" at Persepolis. The archaeologist surely means the
  incense burners represented standing on either side of the king in the
  scenes in the Throne Hall and in the Treasury.
  [53] Acc.
  no. 73-15 DJ. Bought from Mathias Komor, New York; his label E218. Bronze,
  the shaft cast and hot forged. The hinging cover cast and cut through. The
  bowl-shaped receptacle presumably cast. The shaft ends in a spike riveted
  into the base of the bowl. The cast cock is similarly riveted into the top
  part. Overall height: 28.8 cm. Opening diameter of bowl-shaped receptacle:
  8.03-8.15 cm.
  [54] Xenophon,
  Hellenica (Helleniques/, ed. and trans. J. Hatzfeld, 2 vols. (Paris, 1973),
  1.1.9 (vol. 1, pp. 30-31).
  [55] Compare
  von Bothmer, Greek Treasury, no. 41, a small silver pitcher, and no. 38 (the
  Oxus Treasuretype wine jug). Utterly different in shape, they betray their
  kinship in the similarity of the highly idiosyncratic grip terminating the
  handle where it links up with the mouth.
  [56] I
  hope to deal with the Iranian-Phrygian connection elsewhere. One example may
  be cited. This concerns the bronze rhyton with a ram's head protome
  excavated at Gordion.
  [57] Anabasis
  4.4.21, Marqueray ed., vol. 2, p. 25.
  [58] A.
  M. Apakidze, Mtzkheta, vol. 1 (Tbilissi, 1958[, p. 277. See pl. LXXVII-2.
  [59] R.
  Merhav, ed., Urartu: A Metalworking Center in the first Millennium B.C.E.
  (Jerusalem, 1991/, pp. 20-21. The objects found in 714 B.c. by the Assyrian
  invaders in the Urartian palace at Haldi, between Urartu and Assyria near
  Rowanduz in Iraqi Kurdistan, include vessels, utensils, furniture, maces,
  shields. Note silver incense burners "from the land of Tabal"
  which has yet to be identified by scholars. In the temple "393 silver
  bowls, heavy and light [= i.e. cast and raised?] products of Assyria, Urartu
  and Habhu [unidentified]" were plundered.
  [60] Dalton,
  no. 180, pl. XXIII; caption p. 44 where Dalton calls it "Persian fifth
  century." The Louvre dish is reproduced in Les Arts (January, 1902/, p.
  18.
  [61] Dalton,
  no. 178, pl. XXII. Caption pp. 42-43.
  [62] Ibid.,
  no. 184, p. 45 (woodcut illustration on p. 45, fig. 72, wrongly captioned as
  "82"), no. 183, no. 184, p. 45.
  [63] Raised
  bronze sheet. Diameter of opening 13.113.1 cm.
  [64] S.
  Der Nersessian, L'art armenien (Paris, 1977), p. 15.
  [65] Ibid.,
  color plate 1, p. 10. It is not, in fact, the Persian headdress. It displays
  a distinct edge to it, in contrast to the rounded volume of the Persian cap
  and is different in shape.
  [66] Der
  Nersessian, p. 15.
  [67] SPA,
  pl. 119-A and B (the latter of a model so far unmatched from finds in Iran).
  [68] Mierse,
  "The Satrapal Court," p. 104 and fig. 166. Further comments by G.
  M. A. Hanfmann, "The Sacrilege Inscription: The Ethnic, Linguistic,
  Social and Religious Situation at Sardis at the End of the Persian
  Era," BAI 1 (1987), pp. 1-8.
  [69] Sardis,
  p. 104, referring to Pausanias 5.27.5, where he mentions the city of Hypaipa
  near Sardis and Hierokaiseria in this context.
  [70] A.
  S. Melikian-Chirvani, "The Wine-Bull and the Magian Master," in
  Recurrent Patterns in Iranian Religions: From Mazdaism to Sufism, StIr
  cahier 11 (Paris, 1992[, pp. 101-34.
  [71] Sardis,
  p. 104, and von Bothmer, CRAI (1981 /, fig. 10, p. 204. Mentioned p. 205,
  where the Greek specialist assures that the artist "has eliminated any
  reference to a divinity Egyptian or Pers