- Gallery Text
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The God with Clipped Wings
A great god is Ahuramazda, who created this earth, who created heaven, who created man, who created happiness for man, who made Xerxes king, one king of many kings . . .
This relief fragment of the god Ahuramazda in a winged disk was originally located high inside a doorway to a great hall at Persepolis, a capital of the Achaemenid Persian empire in Iran. Echoing the above inscriptions of King Xerxes I (r. 486–465 BCE), Ahuramazda hovered above an image of the enthroned king, who was supported by representatives of the empire’s subject peoples, lending divine legitimacy to Achaemenid rule.
Most of the doorway remains at Persepolis. The story of this fragment is told by its edges: smooth at top and bottom, where the original block joined others, and ragged on the sides, where it was trimmed to create a collector’s item. By restoring some sense of Ahuramazda’s soaring power, this installation acknowl-edges the damage and loss of context resulting from the often clandestine removal of antiquities from Middle Eastern sites that have ended up in western museums. More fragments from Persepolis are displayed in the gallery next door (3440).
- Identification and Creation
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- Object Number
- 1943.1062
- Title
- Relief Fragment: Ahuramazda in the Winged Disk
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Work Type
- sculpture
- Date
- reigns of Xerxes I and Artaxerxes I, 486-460 BCE
- Places
- Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Asia, Persepolis (Persia)
- Period
- Achaemenid period
- Culture
- Achaemenid
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/291721
- Location
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Level 3, Room 3460, Ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Art, Art of the Ancient Mediterranean and Middle East
View this object's location on our interactive map - Physical Descriptions
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- Medium
- Limestone, traces of blue, green, and red paint
- Technique
- Relief
- Dimensions
- 73 cm h x 44.3 cm w x 10 cm d (28 3/4 x 17 7/16 x 3 15/16 in.)
- Provenance
- From the Hall of 100 Columns (west side of southeast doorway), Persepolis (Iran). [E. Sassoon, Paris,(by 1931)], sold; to [Brummer Gallery, Inc, New York, (1931-1932)], sold; to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, NY, (1932-1943), bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943.
- Acquisition and Rights
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- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
- Accession Year
- 1943
- Object Number
- 1943.1062
- Division
- Asian and Mediterranean Art
- Contact
- am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
- THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.
- The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.
- Publication History
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Eric Schroeder, "Relief Sculptures from Persepolis", Bulletin of the Fogg Art Museum (1943), Vol. 10, No. 2, 44-45, p. 44-45, fig. 3.
Arthur Upham Pope and Phyllis Ackerman, A Survey of Persian Art From Prehistoric Times to the Present, Oxford University Press (NY) and Oxford University Press (UK) (London, England and New York, NY, 1967), Vol. I, p. 333; Vol. VII, pl. 96c.
Dorothy W. Gillerman, ed., Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1969), p. 256 (checklist).
Judith Lerner, The Achaemenid Relief of Ahura Mazda in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Bulletin of the Asia Institute (Shiraz, 1971), no. 2, pp. 19-35, pp. 19-35
Judith Lerner, "A Painted Relief from Persepolis", Archaeology, Archaeological Institute of America (New York, April 1973), vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 116-22, pp. 116-22, ill.
George M. A. Hanfmann and David Gordon Mitten, "The Art of Classical Antiquity", Apollo (May 1978), vol. 107, no. 195, pp. 362-369, fig. 3.
Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), p. 97, no. 107, ill.
- Exhibition History
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Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/22/2007 - 01/20/2008
32Q: 3460 East Arcade, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/04/2021 - 01/01/2050
32Q: 3440 Middle East, Harvard Art Museums, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050
- Subjects and Contexts
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Collection Highlights
Google Art Project
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This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu