Standard with Two Ibexes
Unknown · c. 1000-800 BC
Two ibexes stand face to face, their enormous curved horns sweeping back almost the full height of the piece, while two dragons perch on their backs. The bronze is openwork, eighteen centimetres tall, and was cast to sit on top of a pole or a stand. Objects of this kind are called standards or idols, though what they actually did remains a matter of debate.
The standard is attributed to Luristan and dated to the beginning of the first millennium BC, around one thousand to eight hundred BC. Confronted goats are the oldest theme of the Luristan standards, from which the more elaborate master-of-animals type later developed. Pieces like this are found in tombs, sometimes fitted onto a bottle-shaped bronze support, and may have been household idols or emblems of a family. The Louvre purchased it in nineteen fifty eight. The dragons on the ibexes' backs add a mythological note to what is otherwise a scene from the mountain pastures.
Did You Know? The ibex horns are so long they nearly meet at the top, turning two animals into a single frame.
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