Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-7nlkj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-28T03:12:17.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Sogdian Drinking Game at Panjikent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Betty Hensellek
Betty Hensellek*
Affiliation:
Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2017–19), New York, Cornell University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article reconsiders the religio-ritualistic interpretations of the use of the rhyton within eighth-century CE Sogdiana. Through a close art-historical analysis, it argues that three eighth-century wall paintings from Panjikent illustrate a drinking game. This proposal expands the current breadth of meaning attributed to the imagery decorating Sogdian homes. Not only could the paintings illustrate epic narratives, religious veneration, or moral didacticism, but they could also celebrate conviviality, fun, and humor.

Keywords

TajikistanSogdianaWall PaintingsBanquetGamesRhytonWineDress
Type
Regular Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 5-6: Special Section: Saʿdi at Large , November 2019 , pp. 837 - 857
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Azarpay, Guitty. Sogdian Painting: The Pictorial Epic in Oriental Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baulo, Arkadii V., and Marshak, Boris I. “Silver Rhyton from the Khantian Sanctuary.” Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 3, no. 7 (2001): 133–41.Google Scholar
Belenitskii (Belenizki), Aleksandr M. Mittelasien: Kunst der Sogden [Central Asia: art of the Sogdians]. Leipzig: Seemann, 1980.Google Scholar
Belenitskii, Aleksandr M. Monumental’noe iskusstvo Pendzhikenta [Monumental art of Pendzhikent]. Moscow: Iskusstvo Publishing House, 1973.Google Scholar
Belenitskii (Belenitski), Aleksandr M., and Marshak, Boris I. “L’art de Piandjikent à la lumière des dernières fouilles (1958–1968)” [The art of Piandjikent in light of the most recent excavations (1958–1968)]. Trans. Sollohub, A. Arts Asiatiques 23 (1971): 3–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belenitskii, Aleksandr M., and Marshak, Boris I. “The Paintings of Sogdiana.” In Sogdian Painting: The Pictorial Epic in Oriental Art, by Azarpay, Guitty, 11–77. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belenitskii, Aleksandr M., Voronina, Veronika L., and Kostrov, Pavel I. Skul’ptura i zhivopis’ Drevnego Piandzhikenta [Sculpture and painting of ancient Piandzhikent]. Moscow: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1959.Google Scholar
Bijl, Arnoud, and Boelens, Birgit, eds. Expedition Silk Road: Journey to the West: Treasures from the Hermitage. Amsterdam: Amsterdam Hermitage, 2014.Google Scholar
Bogoliubov, Mikhail N., and Smirnova, Ol’ga I. Sogdiiskie dokumenty s Gory Mug: chtenie, perevod, kommentarii, vypusk III khoziaistvennye dokumenty [The Sogdian documents from Mt. Mug: reading, translation and commentary, Vol. III Economic documents]. Moscow: Eastern Literature Publishing House, 1963.Google Scholar
Boyce, Mary. “Haoma.” In Encyclopaedia Iranica, online edition, updated March 6, 2012. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/haoma-ii.Google Scholar
Colburn, Henry P. “From the Mediterranean to China—After Alexander.” In Animal-Shaped Vessels from the Ancient World: Feasting with Gods, Heroes, and Kings, ed. Ebbinghaus, Susanne, 305–51. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.Google Scholar
Ebbinghaus, Susanne. “Creatures of Dionysos? Vessels from Greece and Thrace.” In Animal-Shaped Vessels from the Ancient World: Feasting with Gods, Heroes, and Kings, ed. Ebbinghaus, Susanne, 189–243. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.Google Scholar
Ebbinghaus, Susanne. “Feasting like the Persian King.” In Animal-Shaped Vessels from the Ancient World: Feasting with Gods, Heroes, and Kings, ed. Ebbinghaus, Susanne, 135–87. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.Google Scholar
Gunter, Ann C., and Jett, Paul. Ancient Iranian Metalwork in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art. Washington, DC: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution; Distributed by P. von Zabern, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harper, Donald. “The Analects Jade Candle: A Classic of T’ang Drinking Custom.” T’ang Studies 4 (1986): 69–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harper, Prudence O. “Rhyton: Tête d’antelope saïga.” In Les Perses sassanides: Fastes d’un empire oublié, 224–642 [Sasanian Persia: splendors of a forgotten empire], ed. Demange, Françoise, 119–20, no. 59. Paris: Paris Musées, 2006.Google Scholar
Harper, Prudence O. The Royal Hunter: Art of the Sasanian Empire. New York: Asia Society, 1978.Google Scholar
Hensellek, Betty. “Banqueting, Dress and the Idealized Sogdian Merchant.” In Fashioned Selves, ed. Cifarelli, Megan, 185–99. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iakubovskii, Aleksandr I., D’iakonov, Mikhail M., Belenitskii, Aleksandr M., and Kostrov, Pavel I. Zhivopis’ drevnego Piandzhikenta [Paintings of ancient Piandzhikent]. Moscow: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1954.Google Scholar
Jäger, Ulf. “Rhyta im präislamischen Zentralasien (4.–8. Jh. n. Chr.), Form und Verwendung: einfache Trinkgefässe oder Libationsgefässe in synkretistischen Religionssystemen?” Iranica Antiqua 41(2006): 187–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jäger, Ulf. “Rhyton.” In Encyclopaedia Iranica, online edition, updated October 24, 2016. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/rhyton-vessel.Google Scholar
Al-Jazarī, Ibn al-Razzāz. The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices. Trans. Hill, Donald R. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1974.Google Scholar
Juliano, Annette L., and Lerner, Judith A., eds. Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China Gansu and Ningxia 4th–7th Century. New York: Harry N. Abrams with the Asia Society, 2001.Google Scholar
Koehl, Robert B. Aegean Bronze Age Rhyta. Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Kulakova, Larisa Iu. “The Art of Sogdiana: Monumental Paintings from Panjakent.” In Expedition Silk Road: Journey to the West: Treasures from the Hermitage, ed. Bijl, Arnoud and Boelens, Birgit, 90–94. Amsterdam, Amsterdam Hermitage Publishing House.Google Scholar
Kulakova, Larisa Iu. “Rospisi paradnogo zala XXI ob″ekta Drevnego Pendzhikenta” [The paintings of the Reception Hall in Sector XXI Ancient Pendzhikent]. Trudy Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha (Sogdiisty, ikh predshestvenniki, sovremenniki i nasledniki) LXII (2013): 159–73.Google Scholar
Langdon, S., and Harden, D.B. “Excavations at Kish and Barghuthiat 1933.” Iraq 1, no. 2 (1934): 113–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Louis, François. “The Hejiacun Rhyton and the Chinese Wine Horn (Gong): Intoxicating Rarities and Their Antiquarian History.” Artibus Asiae 67, no. 2 (2007): 201–42.Google Scholar
Lukonin (Loukonine), Vladimir G., and Ivanov, Anatoli A. Lost Treasures of Persia: Persian Art in the Hermitage Museum, Washington, DC: Mage, 1996.Google Scholar
Lur’e, Pavel B. “Eshche raz o ‘Kapellakh’ Pendzhikenta i Verkhnego Zeravshana” [One more time on “Chapels” of Panjikent and the Upper Zeravshan]. Rossiiskaia Arkheologiia 1 (2014): 88–99.Google Scholar
Marshak, Boris I. Legends, Tales, and Fables in the Art of Sogdiana. New York: Bibliotheca Persica Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Marshak, Boris I. “Panjikant.” In Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, updated July 20, 2002. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/panjikant.Google Scholar
Marshak (Marschak), Boris I. Silberschätze des Orients: Metallkunst des 3.-13. Jahrhunderts und ihre Kontinuität [Silver treasures of the East: metalwork of the third to thirteenth century and their continuity]. Leipzig: Seemann, 1986.Google Scholar
Marshak, Boris I. “The So-Called Zandanījī Silks: Comparisons with the Art of Sogdia.” In Central Asian Textiles and Their Contexts in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Schorta, Regula, 49–60. Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2006.Google Scholar
Marshak, Boris I., and Raspopova, Valentina I. “Sogdiiskoe Izobrazhenie Deda-Zemledel’sta” [The Sogdian image of the grandfather farmer]. In Voprosy Drevnei Istorii Iuzhnoi Sibiri, 108–16. Abakan: Khak. NIIIALI, 1984.Google Scholar
Marshak, Boris I., and Raspopova, Valentina I. “Une image sogdienne du dieu-patriarche de l’agriculture” [A Sogdian image of the god-patriarch of agriculture]. Studia Iranica 16 (1987): 193–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshak, Boris I., and Raspopova, Valentina I. “Wall Paintings from a House with a Granary Panjikent, 1st Quarter of the Eighth Century A. D.” Silk Road Art and Archaeology 1 (1990): 123–76.Google Scholar
Melikian-Chirvani, Assadullah Souren. “The Iranian Wine Horn from Pre-Achaemenid Antiquity to the Safavid Age.” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 10 (1996): 85–139.Google Scholar
Meshkeris, Veronika A. Sogdiiskaia terrakota [Sogdian terracotta]. Dushanbe: Donish Publishing House, 1989.Google Scholar
Mode, Markus. “Die Religion der Sogder im Spiegel ihrer Kunst.” In Die vorislamischen Religionen Mittelasiens, ed. Jettmar, K. and Kattner, E., 141–218. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2003.Google Scholar
Guimet, Musée, ed. Lit de pierre, sommeil barbare: Présentation, après restauration et remontage, d’une banquette funéraire ayant appartenu à un aristocrate d’Asie centrale venu s’établir en Chine Au VIe siècle [A stone bed, barbaric sleep: presentation after the conservation and reassembly of a funerary couch that belonged to an aristocrat from Central Asia who came to China in the sixth century]. Paris: Musée Guimet, 2004.Google Scholar
Nemchinova, L.E., ed. Restravratsiia v Ermitazhe: Vzlgiad Skvoz’ Prizmy Vremeni [Conservation in the Hermitage: through the prism of time]. Saint Petersburg: State Hermitage Publishers, 2014.Google Scholar
Raspopova, Valentina I. “Textiles Represented in Sogdian Murals.” In Central Asian Textiles and Their Contexts in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Schorta, Regula, 61–74. Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2006.Google Scholar
Savel’eva, Eleonora A. “Khronologiia pogrebal’nykh kompleksov Veslianskogo I mogil’nika” [Сhronology of the burial complexes of the Vesliana I Cemetery]. Kratkie Soobshcheniia Instituta Arkheologii 158 (1979): 91–6.Google Scholar
Shepherd, Dorothy G., and Ternbach, Joseph. “Two Silver Rhyta.” Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 53, no. 8 (1966): 289–317.Google Scholar
Sims, Eleanor, with Marshak, Boris I. and Grube, Ernst J. Peerless Images: Persian Painting and Its Sources. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Thurnell-Read, Thomas. “Drinking Games.” The Sage Encyclopedia of Alcohol: Social, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives, ed. Martin, C. Scott. Boston: Sage, 2015: 496–498.Google Scholar
Trever, Kamilla V., and Lukonin, Vladimir G. Sasanidskoe serebro: Sobranie Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha: khudozhestvennaia kul’tura Irana 3–8 vekov [Sasanian silver: Collection of the State Hermitage: artistic culture of Iran third–eighth centuries]. Moscow: Iskusstvo Publishing House, 1987.Google Scholar
Wecowski, Marek. The Rise of the Greek Aristocratic Banquet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wertmann, Patrick. Sogdians in China: Archaeological and Art Historical Analyses of Tombs and Texts from the 3rd to the 10th Century AD. Darmstadt: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2015.Google Scholar
Zeimal’, Evgenii V. Drevnosti Tadzhikistana: Katalog Vystavki [Ancient Tajikistan: exhibition catalog]. Dushanbe: Donish Publishing House, 1985.Google Scholar