Gold bracelet with lion heads
About 800 to 600 BC
A heavy ring of solid gold ends in two lion heads that face each other across the gap, mouths open, ears flat, manes rendered as rows of fine curls. The metal is thick and the workmanship confident: the heads were probably made separately and joined to the hoop, and every detail of the faces is chased with a fine tool. It was made in northwestern Iran between about 800 and 600 BC and belongs to the world of the Ziwiye treasure, a famous hoard of gold and ivory objects that appeared on the art market in the 1940s and 1950s and that mixes Assyrian, Scythian and native Iranian styles.
Lions were the animals of kings across the ancient Near East, and a bracelet like this would have been worn on the upper arm by a ruler or a high official, or given as a diplomatic gift. Look at the proportions of the heads: the wide, flat muzzles and the stylised manes are close to the lions on Assyrian palace reliefs, but the compact, almost cartoonish force of the animals is characteristic of the nomadic art of the steppes. Compare the piece with the other gold objects nearby from Egypt, Greece and China of similar date; the museum arranges them together to show that the taste for gold animals ran across the whole ancient world.
The museum displays the bracelet in its early chapters among the first great powers, where the emphasis is on how empires used precious materials to show authority. The Ziwiye finds have a complicated history, since they were dug up without records and scattered among museums, which is why so little is known about who wore this bracelet. Notice the open gap between the lion heads: the bracelet was sprung onto the arm, and the lions guarded the wearer from either side.
Did You Know? Bracelets of this kind were worn above the elbow, and in Assyrian reliefs kings and winged spirits are shown wearing them with the animal heads facing outward.
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