The Lost Treasures Persian Art. Vladimir Lukonin

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СКАЧАТЬ Khwataw-namak), produced in 959 on the order of the ruler of the city of Tus, Abu Mansur Muhammad ibn Abd al-Razzaq, by four Zoroastrians (to judge by their names), “scholars of the past of the Persian kings”.

      In lyrical poetry, the famous poets of the “Persian Renaissance”, Rudaki, Daqiqi and others, comprehensively exploited all the achievements of Arabic literature, but also utilised non-Arabic verse forms which were evidently still Sassanian or were re-created on the basis of Sassanian verse.

      Their work was founded on oral tradition, the poetry of those same gosans who, in the courts of local rulers during the early Islamic era, continued to be “…entertainers of king and commoner, privileged at court and popular with the people; present at the council and at the feast; eulogists, satirists, story-tellers, musicians; recorders of past achievements, and commentators in their own times”.[20]

      The greatest literary achievement of this period was the Iranian national epic, the Shahnama of Firdawsi, who wrote this long poem on the glorious past of his country. Although he undoubtedly considered his subject matter as history, he wrote it in the form of a narrative poem, creating characters and combining various events from different periods or episodes from various legends around them so that the acts of his heroes and their ethical and moral, or even political consequences should stand out in sharp relief. Firdawsi’s poem, like Iranian poetry of that period in general, could be said to “discover” the individual as an independent, creative being, as a personality and as the creator of his own fate and history. Man as an individual, and not as a typical representative of an estate, caste or class – it could be said that this is the leitmotif of Persian literature and social life at the time of the “Persian Renaissance”.

      It is clearly unnecessary to discuss the social and economic basis of this process at any length – it is completely comprehensible and has frequently been described. This, incidentally, was the golden age in the development of cities, but they differed from those of Western Europe, above all, in that their citizens had no special class privileges. The city was simply a conglomerate of manufacturing, territorial, religious and other self-governing corporations under the aegis of a civil service. Like the poets at court, the cities’ craftsmen were bound together by close ties. All of these highly important circumstances bear witness to the enormous changes taking place in society, its social structure and its psychology.

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      Примечания

      1

      In western Iran, apart from the Assyrians and Babylonians who spoke the Akkadian and Elamite languages, there were numerous tribes and small organised states with dynasties of Hurrian or Qutian-Kassite origins.

      2

      Dyson 1969, pp. 12–14.

      3

      There may be material from several burial sites of various periods at Marlik, the dates of these sites differing from each other by up to 1,500 years. See Negahban 1964; Negahban 1972, pp. 142–152; Negahban 1977; Hakemi 1973; Moghaddam 1972, pp. 133–136, figs. 1–3.

      4

      The vessel is a tall stemless vase or goblet (of the same form as almost all the gold vessels from Marlik, Hasanlu and finds from other sites). The technique of all these vessels is also standard – embossing with subsequent engraving.

      5

      Wilkinson 1975, p. 7.

      6

      It is true that there is another point of view which holds that the art of the Scythians was non-representat

Примечания

1

In western Iran, apart from the Assyrians and Babylonians who spoke the Akkadian and Elamite languages, there were numerous tribes and small organised states with dynasties of Hurrian or Qutian-Kassite origins.

2

Dyson 1969, pp. 12–14.

3

There may be material from several burial sites of various periods at Marlik, the dates of these sites differing from each other by up to 1,500 years. See Negahban 1964; Negahban 1972, pp. 142–152; Negahban 1977; Hakemi 1973; Moghaddam 1972, pp. 133–136, figs. 1–3.

4

The vessel is a tall stemless vase or goblet (of the same form as almost all the gold vessels from Marlik, Hasanlu and finds from other sites). The technique of all these vessels is also standard – embossing with subsequent engraving.

5

Wilkinson 1975, p. 7.

6

It is true that there is another point of view which holds that the art of the Scythians was non-representational before their arrival in the Near-East (see Rayevsky 1984).

7

The panther twisted into a ring from the Arzhan barrow (8th or early 7th century BCE) is a completely different motif: amongst the objects from Ziwiye there is an attempt to do something similar (on the gold pommel of the spear), but it is clear that the craftsmen of Ziwiye were ill-acquainted with such stylisation (for further details see Sorokin 1972).

8

The finds from Ziwiye are assigned to the 7th century BCE only in accordance with a historical interpretation, or because some of the motifs are close to those of Kelermes. But the only items in the hoard open to more or less precise dating are the fragments of a bronze sarcophagus (Assyria: late 8th to the early 7th centuries BCE), carved ivory articles and the Assyrian pottery (8th to the early 7th centuries BCE). The Kelermes objects are variously dated. In the catalogue From the Land of the Scythians (New York, 1978) the date suggested for them is late 7th to the early 6th centuries BCE.

9

This is not just the case with imagery – for example, on the beautiful 6th-century silver-gilt dish exactly the same stylised palmettes are depicted on the bodies of the goats as are also found on the goats of the Ziwiye pectoral. For further details on the Ziwiye style in Achaemenid art see Lukonin 1977b, pp. 33–36.

10

In Achaemenid times – as traditional motifs, no longer meaningful and very deformed – they only survive on the chape of scabbards (see Cullican 1965).

11

On the architecture of the Median temple, ruler’s residence, and fortifications discovered by archaeologists in the 1960s, see Stronach 1973.

12

Hundreds of works have been devoted to the campaigns of СКАЧАТЬ