From Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt in the south to Thrace, Anatolia, and the Caucasus in the north, and from regions as far west as mainland Greece all the way east to Iran, the great royal houses forged intense international relationships through the exchange of traded raw materials and goods as well as letters and diplomatic gifts during the Second Millennium BCE. This unprecedented movement of precious materials, luxury goods, and people resulted in a total transformation of the visual arts throughout a vast territory that spanned the ancient Near East and the eastern Mediterranean. Cult scenes or religious processions are commonly represented in the art of this period.
Hittite texts mention that animal-shaped vessels made of gold, silver, stone, and wood, in the appropriate animal form, were given to the gods for their own use. One such god, worshiped in animal form, was the stag god. It is thought that the ‘Stag God’ originated in the steppes and was brought to Anatolia by the early Indo-Iranian peoples who left their Kurgan burials at Trialeti and elsewhere in the region and mixed with the Hurrian and other peoples as far as northern Anatolia. Although this vessel is a few centuries older than the Neo-Hittite era, its stag god was probably the basis for Karhuhas (or Kurhunta), thought to have been a fertility deity or protector of nature, later worshiped during the Neo-Hittite period. The stag has even been found as tattoos on the so-called ‘ice princess’ in the Altai Mountains. Here at the eastern extremity of the IE steppe culture zone, her frozen body was recovered with Scythian style stags still plainly visible on her skin.
"This silver drinking vessel in the form of a stag was hammered from one piece that was joined to the head by a checkerboard-patterned ring. Both the horns and the handle were attached separately. A frieze depicting a religious ceremony decorates the rim of the cup, suggesting the uses for which the cup was intended. A prominent figure, thought to be a goddess, sits on a cross-legged stool, holding a bird of prey in her left hand and a small cup in her right. She wears a conical crown and has large ears, typical of Hittite art. A mushroom-shaped incense burner separates her from a male god who stands on the back of a stag. He, too, holds a falcon in his left hand, while with his right he grasps a small curved staff. Three men are shown in profile, moving to the left and facing the deities. Each holds an offering to the divinities. Behind the men is a tree or plant against which rests the collapsed figure of a stag. Hanging from the tree is a quiver with arrows and an object that appears to be a bag. Two vertical spears complete the frieze and separate the stag from the goddess. Spears were venerated objects, so it is possible that the stag was killed in a hunt, as suggested by the quiver and bag". - Metropolitan Museum of Art
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| Images: Stag vessel, Anatolia, Hittite Empire, 14th–13th century B.C.E. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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