Straight Pin with Plain Globular

A sphere on top of two raised bands with incised lines crowns this pin, which has a round, slim shaft tapering to a point. Widely spaced vertical lines bordered by a horizontal line below are incised on the sphere and create the impression of a bud or seedpod. The head may be incomplete in its present state, as its top surface shows modern file marks. However, the same combination of a fluted sphere and two raised bands on the neck occurs on a pin excavated at Surkh Dum (1). This group of pins acquired in Luristan is inspired by plant motifs (162.1972, 163.1972, 165.1972, and 166.1972). Three pin heads are more or less explicitly in the shape of poppy seedpods, while the fourth looks like a bud. The shafts of two of the pins are decorated with raised bands encircled by incised lines that similarly occur on many Luristan bronze objects. A large number of such floral pins were excavated in the building complex at Surkh Dum, which is generally interpreted as a sanctuary. This suggests that these pins were used in Luristan during Iron Age II and early Iron Age III (the ninth to eighth centuries BCE) (2). NOTES: 1. No. Sor 988; see E. F. Schmidt, M. N. van Loon, and H. H. Curvers, The Holmes Expedition to Luristan (Chicago, 1989) 299, pl. 167.f. 2. See Schmidt, van Loon, and Curvers 1989 (supra 1) 268-69 and 301-306 (27D.12-14), pls. 168-70. Compare also P. R. S. Moorey, Catalogue of the Ancient Persian Bronzes in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, 1971) 188-89, nos. 297-300, pl. 48. Susanne Ebbinghaus