plaque
- Museum number
- 91908
- Description
-
Flat fired clay perforated plaque showing in low moulded relief a heavily armoured horseman (cataphract) wearing scale or lamellar armour and a "coal skuttle" helmet, spearing a lion.
- Production date
- 3rdC BC-2ndC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 15.20 centimetres
-
Thickness: 2.30 centimetres
-
Width: 19 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- The armour indicates that he belongs to a type of warrior known as a cataphract although it is surprising to see this being used in a hunting scene such as this. The holes may have been to enable attachment to a wooden coffin. Nicolle (1996: 8-9) refers to the horse having a substantial curb bit with large cheek pieces, and the warrior wearing a hat over his helmet as a typically Iranian and Central Asian practice, with a mail aventail hanging below, and a Central Asian-type sleeveless lamellar shirt. Sekunda proposes that the armour is scale rather than lamellar, and that it is late Seleucid or early Parthian in date.
There is a pair of holes at the top which appear to be original. At some point the object broke into two as there is a repaired crack extending diagonally from the top left to the centre bottom and the two pieces joined by using wire attached through two pairs of small holes, one on each side at the top and bottom of the crack.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2020 7 Mar-Sep, Newcastle upon Tyne, Great North Museum: Hancock, Ancient Iraq
2012 24 May-30 Sep, London, BM, 'The horse: from Arabia to Royal Ascot'
2010 29 May-15 Oct, USA, Kentucky Horse Park, 'A Gift from the Desert'
2007 13 Feb-27 May, Italy, Turin, 'Sulla via di Alessandro da Seleucia al Gandhara'
1995-2005 17 Nov-15 Dec, BM, G52/IRAN/25.
1994 16 Jun-23 Dec, BM, G49/IRAN.
- Acquisition notes
- 19th century acquisition.
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 91908
- Registration number
- .91908
