Four Luristan Zoomorphic Amulet Figures

Near East, Persia, Luristan. A quartet of miniature cast animals, each reduced to the few contours that make a species unmistakable. The largest is an ibex with sweeping ribbed horns curving back over its shoulders, pierced through the body with a suspension loop; a stag with branching antlers carries a similar perforation. A slender goat and a broad-backed bovine complete the group, their legs joined in pairs and bodies left smooth. All four were solid-cast in leaded copper alloys, the ibex in a brassy metal, the goat and stag in bronze, the bovine in an iron-bearing lead alloy, and all wear a green and earth-toned patina. Such figures likely served as amulets or votive offerings, strung at the throat or deposited at shrines by the herding peoples of the Persian highlands, for whom horned game held protective meaning. The metalworkers of Luristan, in the Zagros ranges of western Persia, produced one of the ancient world's most distinctive bodies of small-scale cast metal: horse bits, standard finials, pins, whetstone handles, and hosts of animal figurines, most of them recovered from cemeteries and mountain sanctuaries rather than settled towns. The repertoire is dominated by horned quadrupeds. Ibex, stag, goat, and bull recur across centuries, abbreviated to horn, spine, and leg, a shorthand legible to a pastoral society whose wealth walked on four legs. Lead contents at the levels indicated here are typical of the region's alloys; heavy leading lowers the melting point and improves flow in the mold, which is precisely what a caster wants when filling forms this small. It also confirms these as products of a workshop tradition solving a technical problem, not one-off curiosities. Please note that items in this lot contain up to 30.4% lead and thus not recommended for wear. Item # 204625

Stima:€200.58

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