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Horse cheekpieces (1)

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Topics (move over topic to see place in topic list) Artefacts 06 Visual arts and architecture 06.02 Artefacts	Keywords cheekpiece horse harness Luristan Rhodes Samos
Period 8th century BCE 7th century BCE Neo-Assyrian Empire	Channel Iconographic tradition

Text
Cheekpieces in the form of a horse are known both from Luristan in Iran, and from Assyria. According to Moorey (1971, 115) the fact that there was no tradition of manufacturing zoomorphic cheekpieces in Assyria before Sennacherib could possibly indicate that the Assyrians borrowed the design from Iran. Assyrian cheekpieces in the form of a running horse worn by royal chariot horses can also be seen on Assyrian reliefs from the time of Sennacherib.

Cheekpieces in the form of a galloping horse similar to the Assyrian ones have been excavated on the islands of Rhodes and Samos in Greece. These were most possibly of Assyrian origin, either direct imports or copies of Assyrian models.

Bibliography

Moorey 1971, 115	Moorey, P. R. S. Catalogue of the Ancient Persian Bronzes in the Ashmolean Museum. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1971.
Curtis 1994	Curtis, J. E. “Mesopotamian bronzes from Greek sites. The workshops of origin.” Iraq 65 (1994) 1-25. [JSTOR (requires subscription)]

Christina Tsouparopoulou

URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0001538.php

Illustrations (click an image to view the full-size version in a new window)

Fig. 1: Bronze cheekpiece from Samos (B 1215). Photo courtesy of Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, Athens (taken from Curtis 1994).

Fig. 2: Bronze (?) cheekpiece from Nimrud. Photo courtesy of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (taken from Curtis 1994).

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