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Four Urartian Bulls' Heads

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2015

George M. A. Hanfmann
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Extract

In this article we bring together for the first time four bronze bulls' heads of impressive size and weight which seem to form a series. One is in the collection of Mr. J. J. Emery, of Cincinnati, another is in the Fogg Museum, a third is in Cleveland (Plates XVII–XVIII), and the fourth (Plate XIX) is in the Louvre. In 1954 Mr. Emery generously lent his piece to the Fogg Museum for the exhibition of “Ancient Art in American Private Collections” and, through the good offices of Miss Dorothy G. Shepherd, the Trustees of the Cleveland Museum of Art consented to send the Cleveland bull's head for a brief period. Thus I was enabled to examine and compare three of the four heads of this series. For the piece in the Louvre, which I have not seen, I am making use of photographs and measurements supplied by A. Parrot.

As R. D. Barnett was the first to point out to me, two bulls' heads of this kind were found in 1905 in the village of Guşçi, on Urmia Lake. An account of this discovery was given by “Atrpet” in the Armenian periodical Azgagrakan Handess, Revue Ethnographique publiée par la Société Ethnographique Arménienne, XXIII, Part 2, 1912, pp. 114–124.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 6 , December 1956 , pp. 205 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1956

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References

1 R. D. Barnett has made decisive contributions to this study. Dorothy G. Shepherd and Marian Welker supplied valuable information. I am also indebted to P. Amandry, A. Parrot and C. K. Wilkinson for their help.

2 By letter, May, 1954. Independently M. Welker also referred to Atrpet's article.

3 For the location, cf. Turner, W. J., Map of Persia (1892), A–2Google Scholar. This, as well as later maps, spells the name Guchi.

4 “Urartskiy kolumbariy u podoshvy Ararata,” Viestnik Gossudarstvennogo Muzeya Gruzii, XIII B, Tibilisi, 1943, pp. 40–5, 138Google Scholar (English summary), 149, 165 f., Pls. X, 1–2, XI, 3.

5 As translated by Mr. B. H. Kazandjian.

6 R. J. Gettens observed that the presence of chloride (atacamite) in the interior of the Fogg head indicates that the objects came “from an arid region”.

6a I am unable to identify “Mecid Sultan”, whose collection, according to Atrpet, was located in Tiflis in 1912. It seems an unlikely location for any collection of Sultan Abdul Mecid. Kuftin's translator and Mr. Kazandjian agree that Atrpet speaks of Mahomet Alla Mirza as shah; R. D. Barnett (by letter) “a sheikh”.

7 If the bull was “mummified” intentionally he cannot be interpreted as food supply for the dead, but must have had some special significance. Kuftin, p. 40, translated “covered with wax” the word rendered by Mr. Kazandjian as “mummified”. He refers to Strabo, 751 (XV, 3: 20), for the Persian practice of covering the bodies of dead humans with wax before burial. His reference to Servius, , Aen., VI, 420Google Scholar, is irrelevant; there honey not wax is involved. Very little seems to be known about the burial practices of the Urartians. Cf. Kuftin, pp. 69 ff., on a group of cremation burials, and Piotrovskiy, B. B., Urartu, 1939, pp. 48 f.Google Scholar, on “native” inhumation burials, some of which contained skeletons of horses, dogs and camels. Atrpet quotes Y. Lalayan's discovery of a chamber tomb at Mertbneri, in Kegharkounik province, where the skeleton of a large ox was lying beside the north wall.

8 AnSt, III, 1953, p. 121Google Scholar.

8a The article referred to appears in Turk Arkeoloji Dergisi VI: 2, 1956, pp. 40–55Google Scholar. The ungrammatical abbreviation Dergisi stands for this periodical, a revival of Eski Eserler ve Müzeler Genel Müdürlügü, Türk Tarih, Arkeologya ve Etnografya Dergisi.

9 Piotrovskiy, op. cit., pp. 40 f., thinks that bulls' heads and winged figures for cauldrons were cast in sectional moulds of clay or stone. Cf. Barnett, , Iraq, XVI, 1954, p. 21Google Scholar.

10 In the picture of the pillage of the temple at Muṣaṣir there are shown statues of a cow and a calf, which are also mentioned in Sargon's report of the event. But these were at least half life size. Cf. Barnett, R. D., Iraq, XII, 1950, p. 21Google Scholar, fig. 11.

11 Unger, E. in Bossert, H. Th., Geschichte des Kunstgewerbes, III, 1930, pp. 395 f.Google Scholar, fig. 1. Bossert, , Altanatolien, 1942, figs. 1181–2Google Scholar. von Luschan, F., Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli, IV, 1911Google Scholar = Mitt. Orient. Samml. Berlin, XIV, pp. 246 f.Google Scholar, figs. 256, Pl. 60. The heads on the throne of Assurnasirpal must be rams, not bulls as we said in Dergisi. Budge, E. H. Wallis, Assyr. Sculpture in the British Museum, 1914, Pl. 31CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Frankfort, , AAO (Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, 1955), pp. 87 f.Google Scholar, Pl. 89.

12 Sarre, pp. 20, 63. Barnett, R. D. and Gökçe, Nuri, AnSt, III, 1953, pp. 121 ff.Google Scholar, Pls. XII, XIV, XIX, 1. The bulls' heads are “brazed on to T-shaped plates”.

13 Barnett, R. D., Iraq, XII, 1950, pp. 1 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, figs. 1–2, Pl. XVI. P. Amandry has discovered that a piece in the Walters Art Gallery and another bull's head in a private collection belong to this series, cf. Hill, D. K., The Fertile Crescent, 1944, p. 31, fig. 25Google Scholar.

14 In 1859 “near the South Caucasian frontier”. Kuftin, pp.41, 149, n. 51–2, Pl XI, 5. Piotrovskiy, B. B., in Leningrad, Hermitage, Trudy Otdela Vostoka, I, 1939, p. 50Google Scholar. Hermitage 16 004. Found together with a typical Urartian “winged-man” attachment.

15 Barnett, R. D., Iraq, XIV, 1952, p. 142Google Scholar, fig. 8. Atrpet, pp. 115 f., reports the discovery of two bulls' heads in a tomb at Diraklar, in the Shirağ valley, but nothing further seems to be known about them.

16 My notes on the bulls' heads from Altın Tepe (Ethnographic Museum, Ankara) say “smaller than Fogg”. Barnett gives 9 cm. as the height of BM 91240 from Toprak Kale, apparently measured without horns. Fogg would be 10·4 cm., Cincinnati 9·9 cm., in the same position.

17 Piotrovskiy, , Urartu, p. 16Google Scholar. On his map, however, he places Gilzan in this region. Olmstead, , History of Assyria, 1923Google Scholar, puts Gilzan at the north-west tip, Parsua along the western shore, but mentions it as in possession of “Mannai” at various times, pp. 263, 363.

18 Le trésor de Ziwiyé, 1950, pp. 9 ffGoogle Scholar. Schefold, K., Handbuch d. Archäologie, VII, 1954, p. 428Google Scholar, calls the treasure early Achaemenid.

19 For the belt, cf. Atrpet, p. 121, photograph. Kuftin, pp. 40, 138, 149, Pl. XI, 1. R. D. Barnett and C. K. Wilkinson have identified a part of the same belt in the Metropolitan Museum, Accession number 52.123. Plate XX, 2, is after the drawing in Kuftin, Pl. XI, 1.

20 Kuftin, p. 44. For the jumping animals of the belt, cf. Godard, op. cit., fig. 109, very like the bronze plaque from Shirağ, Kuftin, fig. 44, and Piotrovskiy, , Urartu, p. 53Google Scholar, fig. 36, bronze belt from Kars dated in the early 6th century on the strength of “Proto-Scythian” elements.

21 Woolley, C. L., Sumerian Art, 1935, p. 78, Pl. 39aGoogle Scholar.

22 Those preserved are not of the “square-maned” type. Cf., for example, ivory bulls' head from Megiddo, , Bossert, , Altsyrien, 1951, fig. 1113Google Scholar.

23 British Museum 91 884 (1061), c. 800 B.C.? I owe the photograph to the kindness of R. D. Barnett.

24 Frankfort, H., AAO, 1955, Pl. 162Google Scholar.

25 Iraq, XII, 1950, pp. 36 fGoogle Scholar.

26 AnSt, III, 1953, Pl XIX, 1Google Scholar.

27 This is apparently also true of the piece from Kurdistan in the Hermitage, Kuftin, Pl. XI, 5. It belongs to another set, perhaps slightly earlier than the Guşçi series.

28 AnSt, III, 1953, p. 129Google Scholar. Iraq, XIV, 1952, p. 142Google Scholar, fig. 8.

29 Kunze, E., P. Reinecke Festschrift, 1950, pp. 96 ff.Google Scholar, with bibliography. The fine Assyrian bearded man, now according to Dr. J. Hirsch in Copenhagen, is imitated in the Urartian piece from the Tomba dei Lebeti, Vetulonia. Assyrian: Kunze, E., Kretische Bronzereliefs, 1931, Beilage 6, no. 22Google Scholar. Detroit Institute of Arts, Small Bronzes of the Ancient World, 1947, no. 13. Urartian: GiglioliGoogle Scholar, L'arte etrusca, 1934, Pl. VI, 1Google Scholar, same style as the figurine of a god from Kale, Toprak, Iraq, XII, 1950Google Scholar, Pl. XVIII, 2.

30 Cf. Sarre, , Die Kunst des alten Persien, 1922, Pls. 21, 37, 40Google Scholar.

31 In the Dergisi article we had argued that the resemblance to the ram-head son Assurnasirpal's throne implied a date in the 9th century. Budge, E. A. Wallis, Assyr. Sculpt. Brit. Mus., 1914, Pl. 31Google Scholar. Similarly, Kuftin thought that the Guşçi bulls' heads must be earlier than all other Urartian bulls' heads, because they are superior in quality and plastic in detail. We know so little of the earlier phase of Urartian art that certainty is impossible.

32 Assyrian annals indicate that political units other than Urartu (Mana, Muşaşir) were involved.

33 I have collected material on Anatolian bronzes; it provides no support for Kunze's recent suggestion that Urartian “winged-men” and related bronzes were produced in Eastern Anatolia.

34 Kunze, E., Reinecke Festschrift, 1950, p. 98, n. 14Google Scholar, publishes a Near Eastern cauldron bull's head from Argos and lists Greek imitations.