Cosmetic Stick with Ibex Finial

This instrument consists of the head, neck, and tubular hindquarters of a bearded wild goat on top of a tapering shaft whose tip is pinched into a flat, spatulate shape. A hole (0.3 cm in diameter) marks the transition from the animal to the shaft. The stylized features of the goat are carefully modeled. The same type of dipstick occurs with bull- and horse-shaped finials, where the animals have similar tubular bodies and stumpy tails (1). Related animals are also known from pendants, such as 1995.1147. A horse-headed cosmetic stick was excavated in a tomb with a female burial at Ghalekuti in Dailaman, a region in the northern slopes of the Elburz mountain range in the Iranian province Gilan. The utensil was found near the collarbones of a skeleton, suggesting that it might have been worn on a string around the neck (2). The find from Ghalekuti allows us to attribute the Harvard example to the southwest Caspian region in the Parthian period (3). NOTES: 1. For bull and goat examples, see P. R. S. Moorey, Ancient Persian Bronzes in the Adam Collection (London, 1974) 141-42, nos. 122-23. For horses, see E. L. B. Terrace, The Art of the Ancient Near East in Boston (Boston, 1962) no. 40; 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. figs. 3-4 and 9-14 [in Japanese with an English summary]; and 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) 140-41, nos. 205-207. 2. For Tomb GHAII-T.5, see T. Sono and S. Fukai, Dailaman 3: The Excavations at Hassani Mahale and Ghalekuti, The Tokyo University Iraq-Iran Archaeological Expedition 8 (Tokyo, 1968) 37 and 45-46, nos. 9 and 63, pls. 47.a-b and 80.11. 3. A revised dating places the Ghalekuti tomb in the early Parthian period, although some burial goods from graves of the same group may be even later; compare Moorey 1974 (supra 1) 142; Fukai 1970 (supra 1); and A. Hori, “Dailaman and Shahpir,” Bulletin of the Ancient Orient Museum 3 (1981): 43-61, esp. fig. 5.9. V. Sarkhosh Curtis assigns a belt plaque from GHAII-T.2 to the first to third centuries CE; see id., “Parthian Belts and Belt Plaques,” Iranica Antiqua 36 (2001): 299-327, esp. 306. Susanne Ebbinghaus