ARCHAEOLOGICAL OBJECT - LATE AGE - LURISTAN - Bronze Master of Animals openwork pinhead, circa 9th/8th century BC

Pins of this form were the most popular votive pins in Luristan. The diety shown on them all in the role of "master of animals" was of considerable eminence and power in the local pantheon. The Master of Animals is a motif in ancient art showing a human between two confronted animals. The motif is widespread in the art of the Ancient Near East and Egypt. This bronze pin consists of a composite human figure and animals. The upper part of the figure holds two mythological animals the ″master of animals″ position. The work is solid cast in one piece. This work is part of a large body of material from western Iran, about which there is little concrete information. Who the people of Luristan were in antiquity, what language they spoke, and whether they were nomads or sedentary villagers are unanswerable questions. Given the quality and output of their bronze work, they seem to have been at least partly settled people, and it is clear that horses played an important part in their culture. The heraldic figure in this example has been interpreted as Gilgamesh, the hero of a Mesopotamian epic. Since the ″master of animals" motif occurred in Mesopotamia, this may be so, but without any written documents it is hard to know the meaning of the wealth of human and animal imagery in Luristanian art. Roman Ghirshman interpreted the figure as Sraosha, the early Iranian god of justice (Ghirshman 1964, 44 ff.). Whether these figures really were carried on standard poles in processions is not clear. Some of them were buried in graves, as were other major types of Luristan bronzes. references:
• cf. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Object Nr. M.76.97.182) Selected Bibliography:
• Ancient Bronzes, Ceramics, and Seals: The Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collection of Ancient Near Eastern, Central Asiatic, and European Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1981.
• PRS Moorey, Catalogue of the Ancient Persian Bronzes in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford: The Clareon Press (1971), p. 205.
• PRS Moorey, Ancient Persian Bronzes in the Adams Collection, London: Faber and Faber (1974), pp. 123-124.
• Houshang Mahboubian, Art of Ancient Iran: Copper and Bronze, London: Philip Wilson (1997), pp. 191, 193.

provenance German private collection. Acquired on the German art market in the 1990′s

very attractive dark greenbrown patina
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