Horse Pendant

A small hole pierces this small horse figurine at the nape of the neck and emerges at the juncture of the forelegs, so that the horse could have been worn as a pendant. Its tubular rump is elongated and thickens toward the hindquarters and a stumpy tail. The flat, high-curved neck is set off sharply from the body; there is no detail on the head except for the two alert ears. The stick-like legs recall animals figurines of the late second and early first millennia BCE from the province of Gilan (see 1978.505 and 1978.506). However, the defined geometrical forms link this and related horse-shaped pendants more closely to a series of cosmetic sticks with animal finials, such as 1995.1144, which seem to have been used in the same area of northern Iran at a later point, perhaps in the Parthian period (1). NOTES: 1. Compare S. Fukai, “Design of Horse during the Parthian Period: On a Cosmetic Utensil with Horse Design Excavated from the Gilan Province,” The Memoirs of the Institute of Oriental Culture 50 (1970): i, 1-20, esp. 18, fig. 23 (not perforated; Tehran University Collection) [in Japanese with an English summary]; Fukai (p. i) refers to a horse figurine excavated from a Parthian tomb. See also F. Kußmaul, ed., Das Tier in der Kunst Irans, exh. cat., Linden-Museum, Stuttgart (Schorndorf, 1972) nos. 82-83; P. R. S. Moorey, Ancient Bronzes from Luristan (London, 1974) 169-70, nos. 160-61; E. De Waele, Bronzes du Luristan et d’Amlash, Publications d’historie de l’art et d’archeologie de l’Université Catholique de Louvain 34 (Louvain-La-Neuve, 1982) 176-77, nos. 283-86, fig. 146; and O. W. Muscarella, Bronze and Iron: Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1988) 296-97, no. 423. Susanne Ebbinghaus