Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
Portraying a horse striding to the left along a groundline, this cheek piece would be intended for the proper left side of a horse’s mouth. The horse’s long head, shown in profile, is sculpted in the round. It features a linear indentation across the round muzzle, recessed bead eyes, erect ears, and a short, thick stylized mane with a projecting forelock. The slim tail falls to the ankle but has suffered a c. 3-mm loss in the middle. Incised lines define the leg joints. The front and back haunches are modeled, and the hindquarters are embellished with an incised spoke pattern. Incised and in relief, a cord, probably with a bell, is depicted around the neck. No mate is known for this object, but it fits comfortably within the large corpus of Luristan zoomorphic cheek pieces, some of which portray horses wearing a collar or bell (1).
The center of the horse’s torso is punctuated by a bit hole (1.5 cm in diameter) that is circumscribed by a ridge and shows wear. Loops emerge on the top edge of the rear haunch and from behind the head; two conical spikes also project from the concave reverse.
Cheek pieces are components of equestrian gear that were worn on either side of a horse’s mouth (2). They are identified by a central hole through which a bit would have been secured. Cheek straps would have passed through loops at the top, and spikes on the undecorated reverse would have helped control the horse by digging into its cheeks.
Cast zoomorphic cheek pieces may have adorned, protected, and goaded horses. However, it is not clear that this gear was used or if it served specifically as funerary adornment in horse burials, as grave goods in human burials, or as votive objects (3). Although many cheek pieces are attributed to Luristan, no elaborate figural examples come from archaeological contexts (4). Simpler cheek pieces and harness components, however, have been excavated at various first-millennium BCE Iranian sites, including Hasanlu, Giyan, and Sialk (5).
Luristan-style zoomorphic cheek pieces typically feature obverse relief depictions of an animal striding on a groundline facing the direction in which the horse itself would have advanced. Horses, mouflons, and griffins, among other creatures, are represented—variations in imagery may have reflected the identity of the horse or rider, as well as regional and temporal differences.
Because right and left cheek pieces were made from separate molds and no in situ examples have been excavated, it is problematic to attempt to reconstruct matched pairs. Among the abundant figural cheek pieces classified as Luristan are probable forgeries and aftercasts (6).
NOTES:
1. See P. R. S. Moorey, Catalogue of the Ancient Persian Bronzes in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, 1971) 117, nos. 117-19, pls. 16-17; and id., “The Archaeological Evidence for Metallurgy and Related Technologies in Mesopotamia, c. 5500-2100 B.C.,” Iraq 44 (1982): 13-38, esp. 37, nos. 135-36; and O. W. Muscarella, Bronze and Iron: Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1988) 160-61, nos. 253a-b.
2. See Moorey 1971 (supra 1) 106-107, nos. 116-27, pls. 16-21; Muscarella 1988 (supra 1) 155-64, nos. 250-56; and J. A. H. Potratz, Luristanbronzen: Die einstmalige Sammlung Professor Sarre, Berlin (Istanbul, 1968) 15-27, nos. 73-79, pls. 16-17.
3. See Muscarella 1988 (supra 1) 157.
4. See J. A. H. Potratz, Die Pferdetrensen des alten Orient, Analecta Orientalia 41 (Rome, 1966) 143-70.
5. See G. Conteneau and R. Ghirshman, Fouilles du Tépé-Giyan près de Néhavend, 1931 et 1932 (Paris, 1935) pl. 5, fig. 6; M. De Schauensee and R. H. Dyson, “Hasanlu Horse Trappings and Assyrian Reliefs,” in Essays on Near Eastern Art and Archaeology in Honor of Charles Kyrle Wilkinson, eds. P. O. Harper and H. Pittman (New York, 1983) 59-77, esp. 64-68, figs. 7-9.b and 13-14; R. Ghirshman, Fouilles de Sialk près de Kashan 1933, 1934, 1937 (Paris, 1939) 2: pl. 56; C. Goff, “Excavations at Baba Jan, 1967: Second Preliminary Report,” Iran 7 (1969): 115-30, esp. 123-26, figs. 6-7; and Muscarella 1988 (supra 1) 65-66 and 155-66, no. 94.
6. See Muscarella 1988 (supra 1) 161; and id., “An Aftercast of an Ancient Iranian Bronze,” Source 1.2 (1982): 6-9.
Amy Gansell
