Cypriot gold spiral earrings: Local fashion or the result of Achaemenid influence?

 According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, spirals with ornate animal-head terminals are frequently found in Cypriot tombs of the Classical period. Terracotta and limestone votive statues illustrate that from the Archaic through the Classical period it was customary for Cypriot men and women to wear such ornaments in large holes pierced through their earlobes.

When I saw these earrings, I wondered if this Cypriot practice of making large holes in their earlobes to accommodate these ornaments was a local fashion or adopted as a result of Persian rule beginning in 545 BCE, especially since most examples I have seen  are dated between the late 6th century to the 5th century BCE. I managed to find images of Achaemenid bracelets similarly made of gold tubing but each example of similar earrings I found in my research were all labeled Cypriot. Since the Cypriots were ruled by the Assyrians and even the Egyptians for a short time, I researched the jewelry of those cultures as well but found nothing similar. 

Cypriot Earrings or spiral with lion-griffin terminals, Gold and Silver, 400-350 BCE and Lion headed spirals from mid-5th century BCE, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cypriot Gold and copper alloy spiral with lion-head terminal, 2nd half of the 5th century B.C.E. at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The lion-head is made in two halves (left and right) from sheet gold.

Cypriot Earrings or spiral with lion-griffin terminals, Gold and Silver, 400-350 BCE, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Cypriot Earrings or spiral with lion-griffin terminals, Gold and Silver, 400-350 BCE, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Pair of gold spiral earrings with terminals in the form of a crested griffins head. Cypriot, 475-400 B.C.E. British Museum

Gilt bronze spiral with griffin terminal. Period: Classical. Date: ca. 400–350 B.C.E. Culture: Cypriot. Medium: Gold, bronze. British Museum

Cypriot Gold allow spiral earings with Griffin terminals 5th century BCE at the British Museum courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Paul Hudson. (digitally enhanced and recomposed)

Cypriot Gold alloy spiral earring with horned mythological creature terminal and floret, 5th century BCE, at the Antikensammlung Museum in Berlin courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marsupium

Achaemenid Gold Bracelet with Inlaid Termini in the Form of Duck's Heads, Gold with lapis lazuli, agate, and carnelian inlay, mid-6th-4th century B.C.E. at the Miho Museum in Kyoto, Japan. The ducks are reduced to protomes with their heads turned back in a typical Achaemenid fashion. The bracelet is constructed of hollow gold tubing, and the duck protomes were formerly elaborately inlayed with colored stones. One duck bill is made of agate, the other of carnelian. The ducks were both made separately and were in all likelihood originally joined together at their breasts. In order to put on the bracelet, the birds could be separated from the circlet by removing the rivets.

The bracelet type is preserved in much simpler versions of bronze or golden wire, and details like the turned heads resting on the animals' backs seem truly Achaemenid, but a certain naturalistic tendency along with the concept of a removable part may point to a later period and attribute this piece to the circle of Achaemenizing art fashioned in the Hellenistic period. It must be stressed, however, that at the moment, this is nothing but a hypothesis. - Miho Museum, Kyoto, Japan

Achaemenid Gold Bracelet with Inlaid Termini in the Form of Seated Ducks, Gold with lapis lazuli, turquoise, onyx, and rock crystal inlay, mid-6th-4th century B.C.E. at the Miho Museum in Kyoto, Japan. The jeweler of this bracelet chose ducks as terminal figures and combined them with a rather heavy looking circlet that can be opened. The ducks were fashioned separately, and all the feathers and the eyes were originally characterized by inlays. The ducks' bills are not preserved. The birds are fixed to a single massive tubular circlet, which originally had colored inlays at the junction between the ducks. The use of colored inlays for the details of the feathering is a feature of Egyptianizing tendencies in Achaemenid craftsmanship. Though the "Great Kings" are known to have employed Egyptian craftsmen, the use of this technique does not necessarily imply that the jeweler was an Egyptian, because the technique was widely used on objects of truly Achaemenid style. 

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Will newly discovered Parthian tomb reveal Arsacid funerary customs?

A Parthian earthenware coffin has been found in the city of Ramshir in southern Iran.  Also known as the Arsacids, the Parthians ruled areas now in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaidzhan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Israel. from 247 BCE - 224 CE.

Although no grave goods were mentioned in the article I read, archaeologists hope the discovery will reveal more information about Parthian funerary customs.



Because the Parthian Empire spread across so many diverse groups, it is difficult to define a single set of funerary practices.  There also appears to be distinctions based on social status.  Rulers and Parthian nobles appeared to be more influenced by Hellenistic Greek customs as demonstrated by coins of Mithradates I that depict the Greek Hero Herakles on the obverse side.  But scholars also point out that Zoroastrian beliefs were widespread as well.

[Image - Silver Plate showing Dionysos either late Parthian or early Sasanian  Period 2nd - 3rd century CE Afghanistan.  Photographed at the British Museum by Mary Harrsch]

"Ordinary villagers favoured fertility cults. Fire, streams and mountains were also revered, and horse sacrifice occurred. Burial practices included both inhumation (in royal circles) and exposure of human corpses. In the Parthian era all these beliefs and practices seem to have continued, although doubtless as previously with varying emphases being placed upon each component according to region and to section of the population, whether royalty, vassal monarchs, feudal lords, priests, townsfolk, villagers or nomads. - The Parthian Period by Malcolm A. R. Colledge

[Image - Bronze dragon believed to represent Zoroastrian spirit Ahriman Afghanistan 1st century CE.  Photographed at the British Museum by Mary Harrsch]

The article did not mention the discovery of any animal bones so this aspect may indicate the burial was of an individual from a higher social class.



As a student of Roman history, I first encountered the Parthians when reading about the defeat of Marcus Licinius Crassus at the battle of Carrhae.  I became even more intrigued with this culture when I saw some of their beautiful silver gilt rhytons at the Getty Villa like this one.

The Parthians proclaimed themselves to be philhellenes, as evidenced by coins minted by Mithradates I, and this work of art reflects these Hellenistic influences.  However, "friends" referred to trade and not to political relations as the Parthians spent much of the time defending themselves against the Seleucids, descendants of Alexander the Great's army who conquered much of Persia in the fourth century BCE.

However, when the Romans defeated the Seleucid ruler Antiochus, the Parthians swept in to fill the power void and soon experienced friction with the Romans themselves.


During this time, however, around 115 BCE, the Parthians also began to receive envoys from Chinese emperor Wu-ti of the Han Dynasty in China.  Then Parthian ruler, Mithradates II, negotiated with the Chinese over management of the Silk Road.



As I recently researched an extensive article for Heritage Key about the Han Dynasty, I found this information particularly fascinating, especially since most extant ancient sources about the Parthians has been written by their enemies in the west.  The Chinese found the Parthian culture on par with their own, discussing Parthian diplomatic and military activities in both the Hou Hanshu (Book of the Later Han) and the Records of the Grand Historian.  The Han emmisaries were received with much ceremony in the Arsacid court.  The Parthians also apparently cooperated with Han general Ban Chao in expeditions against the Xiongnu (the Chinese name for the Hun) to protect the valuable silk trade route.

Apparently, a Parthian noble was even instrumental in bringing translated Buddhist texts  to the Chinese.

"In 148 [CE], An Shigao arrived in China at the Han Dynasty capital of Luoyang, where he produced a substantial number of translations of Indian Buddhist texts and attracted a devoted community of followers. More than a dozen works by An Shigao are currently extant, including texts dealing with meditation, abhidharma, and basic Buddhist doctrines." - Wikipedia

     



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Coping with Fear: The Truth About Hell by Edwin Black

This article was originally written at the turn of the millennium and has been reprinted from time to time since then. I imagine it surfaced again now since Halloween is fast approaching. However, I found it very interesting because it points out how mistranslations of original ancient text have found their way into modern religious conceptions of things as basic as heaven and hell. I suspect few of the traditional followers of these religions even realize some of the teachings that have become fundamental to the doctrines they profess have such less-than-divine origins.

Coping with Fear

The Truth About Hell

by Edwin Black

Below the Old City walls in Jerusalem there is a ravine that begins as a gentle, grassy separation between hills, but then quickly descends south into the rocky earth. Eventually, the ravine becomes a steep, craggy depth, scarred on the far side by shallow caves and pits that vaunt hollowed-out chambers and narrow crypts.

Until recent years, everywhere one could see the scorches and smolder from trash fires. Rivulets of urine trickled down from open sewers at the cliffs above, watering thorn bushes, weeds and unexpected clumps of grass among the outcroppings. One could smell the stench of decaying offal, the congealed stink of putrefied garbage, and the absorbed reek of incinerated substances seared into the rock face. Crows circled low. Worms and maggots slithered throughout.

Listen. Imagine. Some cannot help but hear the tormented screams of babies being burned alive, the macabre incantations of the idolatrous in gruesome celebration, the agonized cries of helpless victims, and every other echo of death and disconsolation that dwells here so pervasively that not even the centuries can silence them.

Welcome to Hell. The real Hell. This is Jerusalem's Gei Ben Hinnom, the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom. The Valley was named for an alien non-Semitic family, the Hinnom clan that predated the First Temple period and immediately established the locale as a place of abomination. Gei Ben Hinnom became Ge Hinnom (Valley of Hinnom, and eventually Gehenna in English or Gehennem in Arabic and Hebrew.

Those who walked through the Biblical "valley of the shadow of death" walked here. Images of unending torture and fire as punishment for a life of evil originated in this hideous acreage. The prophets always understood that Hell existed, not as a hidden, allegorical place deep beneath the ground maintained as a fable of fear. Hell is on Earth, just a short walk from the path of righteousness that leads to the Temple Mount.

Perhaps it is fitting that the path to Hell begins delightfully. In recent years, the northern and unoffensive length of the valley has become a zone of chic gentrification: exquisite townhomes, landscaped parks, a concert bowl at the Sultan's Pool, and movie theaters. But, as the ravine carves deeper and deeper between the rocky hills, and as it rounds the corners of Mt. Zion into East Jerusalem en route to the Arab village of Silwan, Gei Ben Hinnom conjoins with the Valley of the Kidron. Here it traverses a stretch of depth that has become a sort of urban no-man's-land in the struggle between Arab and Israeli. As land that defies political peace, this is the only part of the Valley that Arabs cannot improve and that Jews dare not.

Therefore, little has changed here for centuries. Still visible are the original, deep angular cuts into the flat scorched stone seating the infamous Tophet, created hundreds of years before Christ. Tophet altars are said to be named for the noisy drum that devotees of the mysterious Molech would beat to drown out the ghastly cries of children immolated in sacrifice before their own willing parents. In the black rapture of their misguided faith, mothers and fathers not only witnessed the sacrifice, but glorified the act. Beneath the ancient Tophet altars, one can still see foreboding square entryways barely big enough for a human torso to squeeze through. Within those dark depths lay a complex of carved-out crypts, as well as chambers for ritual preparation in honor of Molech.

Little is known about the god Molech. Some archaeologists, using Tophet models in Carthage, speculate that the Molech idol in Gei Ben Hinnom was equipped with outstretched cantilevered arms that extended a small platform upon which the innocent baby was tied. Slowly the platform would swivel toward the consuming flames as the baby shrieked in helpless agony. No wonder this most hideous place has repeatedly been the focus of Biblical wrath:

"He defiled Tophet, which is in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so that no one would make a son or a daughter pass through fire as an offering to Molech." II Kings 23:10.

"Therefore the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when this place shall no more be called Tophet, or the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter." Jeremiah 19:16.

But how did a very authentic site of pagan abomination transmogrify into the concept of postmortuarial eternal punishment we call Hell? The tortuous course from reality on the ground to the murky mind of man has evolved along broken and jagged philosophical lines. Ironically, the concept of Hell developed less from the word of God, than by the mind of man. And its supposed physical locale was originally not in burning depths beneath the ground, but rather in a dark corner of heaven.- More

Technorati Tags: heaven, hell, Jerusalem, Christianity, Gehenna, Hebrew, Gei Ben Hinnom, death, damnation, torture

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Gold artifacts recovered from Archaic-period graves in Pella

Archaeologists have unearthed gold jewellery, weapons and pottery at an ancient burial site near Pella in northern Greece, the birthplace of Alexander the Great, the culture ministry said on Thursday.

The excavations at the vast cemetery uncovered 43 graves dating from 650-279 BC which shed light on the early development of the Macedonian kingdom, which had an empire that stretched as far as India under Alexander's conquests.

Among the most interesting discoveries were the graves of 20 warriors dating to the late Archaic period, between 580 and 460 BC, the ministry said in a statement.

Some were buried in bronze helmets alongside iron swords and knives. Their eyes, mouths and chests were covered in gold foil richly decorated with drawings of lions and other animals symbolizing royal power.

"The discovery is rich in historical importance, shedding light on Macedonian culture during the Archaic period," Pavlos Chrysostomou, who headed the eight-year project that investigated a total of 900 graves, told Reuters.

Pavlas said the graves confirmed evidence of an ancient Macedonian society organized along militaristic lines and with overseas trade as early as the second half of the seventh century BC.

Among the excavated graves, the team also found 11 women from the Archaic period, with gold and bronze necklaces, earrings and broaches.

Nine of the graves dated to the late classical or early Hellenistic period, around the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. - More

Technorati Tags: gold, jewelry, helmets, grave goods, graves, Macedonia, Pella, Archaic, Hellenistic, classical, Alexander the Great, archaeology, history

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Topographical Map of Ancient Palmyra Planned

"Although a settlement dating back to the second millennium BC has
already been identified as Palmyra, a new settlement was evidently
established at another site in the third century BC and was later
abandoned in the Roman period. While we know a great deal about the
later Roman city, the Hellenistic settlement of Palmyra has never been
investigated," explains Project Manager Prof. Andreas Schmidt-Colinet
from the Institute of Classical Archaeology at the University of Vienna.
"The current investigation gives us a unique opportunity to analyse the
transition from the Hellenistic period to the time of the Roman Empire
by studying the settlement structures that have been uncovered here over
a wide area."

Chronology of the Settlement & Trade Routes

In view of the large size of the area, the project has thus far focussed
on small sections of the ancient urban settlement structures. This work
is already yielding results, particularly as regards the chronology of
the individual phases of construction and the trade and commercial
background of the Hellenistic "Sand City". The investigations show that
building activities were divided across various major phases stretching
from the third century B.C. to the end of the third century A.D. This
indicates that the site could have fallen out of use around the time
when the city was conquered by the Roman emperor Aurelian or around the
construction of the wall under the emperor Diocletian.

Pottery finds are particularly important for helping to determine the
trade routes used by the citizens of Palmyra. Overall, the
archaeologists have found far larger amounts of local domestic pottery
than imported ceramic goods from other areas.
Nevertheless, amphorae from Rhodes - large clay containers used to
transport wine - and goods imported from Africa show that Palmyra had
connections with far flung corners of the world from the late
Hellenistic period until the late Roman period. Prof. Schmidt-Colinet
comments on the team's discoveries: "Our pottery finds reveal a
continuous progression of Hellenistic-Roman ceramics over a period of
600 years. What's more, we now have the first ever archaeological
evidence for a Hellenistic settlement with continuous habitation over
six centuries extending into the Roman period."

Looking to the future, the archaeologists aim to completely uncover a
monumental courtyard-type structure at the centre of the Hellenistic
settlement that has close parallels with Syrian caravan structures.
However, the team is not just hoping to reveal how or why the individual
rooms were built, it also wants to determine the overall importance of
the structure for the city of Palmyra. At the end of the project, the
findings from the excavations, which have been made possible by the FWF,
will be combined with aerial photographs and structures that are still
visible above ground to provide a topographical map of Palmyra." If you enjoyed this post, never miss out on future posts by following me by email!

Artifact with Hellenistic influence discovered at Sassanid city

Another artifact rescued from dam construction in Iran:

"A team of archaeologists working at the ruins of a Sassanid city in southern Iran’s Fars Province has recently discovered an artifact bearing some traces of the Hellenistic artistic style.

The artifact bears images of two faces looking in the opposite direction engraved on a flat piece of ivory, the Persian service of CHN reported on Monday.

It is only the second time such an artifact has been found at an ancient site in Iran.

"The influence of Hellenistic art is clearly observed in the appearance of the eyes of the faces," team director Alireza Jafari-Zand said.

The artifact is estimated to date back to a period between 200 BC and 200 CE when local states, which were concurrent with the Parthian Empire, appeared to rule the region after the Seleucids, he explained.

A similar artifact had been identified by a foreign archaeologist at an ancient site in the Izeh region of Khuzestan Province about 70 years ago.

The 360-hectare city contains ruins of structures from the Parthian and the Sasanian dynasty eras as well as the post-Sasanian period.

The Sasanian city located behind the Salman-e Farsi Dam, and will be completely destroyed when the dam authorities complete the inundation process."

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