Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This cheek piece and its nearly identical mate 50.1965.2 each portray a mouflon standing atop a groundline. Sculpted in the round, the mouflons’ heads are turned to face the viewer. Tall ears stand erect in front of their horizontally incised horns. Their faces feature applied bead eyes and incised mouth lines. Their front haunches are defined by an indentation, which is higher and more prominent on this piece. Perhaps to accommodate the bit hole, the front halves of their torsos expand outward below the neck and at the belly (50.1965.2 is more angular in this regard). Their torsos then curve up to a narrow waist, and slender tails fall from the back of the hindquarters. The legs on these mouflons might be slightly thickened to suggest that one leg is directly behind another; nonetheless, it is unusual that only two legs are articulated—typically zoomorphic cheek pieces show all four legs, as if the animal were advancing (1).
The centers of the mouflons’ torsos are punctuated by bit holes (1.8 cm in diameter) that are circumscribed by a ridge. Loops emerge on the top edge of the rear haunch and from behind the head; two conical spikes also project from the concave reverse. The groundline and part of the front leg of this piece are restored.
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) nos. 117-25, pls. 16-20; and O. W. Muscarella, Bronze and Iron: Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1988) 160-64, nos. 253-56.
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
