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  1. Discover
  2. Paper: The Achaemenid Empire, 550-330 BC
  3. Unit: Week 6 - Imperial Connectivity

BSH17: Silver jug handles, from the Black Sea hoard

Commentary

BSH17: Silver jug handles, from the Black Sea hoard
Accession number: 
AN1970.1099a & b
Collection: 
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford

BSH17 
Pair of silver handles cast in the form of lions’ foreparts with gaping jaws; details of head and mane engraved.  Originally fixed to a jug (?) at base and forepaws, from which they have been crudely chiselled off.  Very deep chisel cuts in the base of each handle (c. 0.015 long, 0.005m deep).  
0.39 x 0.025m; 41g and 48g. 
Kraay and Moorey 1981, no.135 (Ashmolean 1970.1099ab).

Commentary
There are no precise parallels for this pair of zoomorphic handles in Achaemenid metalware.  The closest analogies are a gold one-handled jug from the Oxus treasure, with the handle terminating in a lion’s head gripping the rim of the jug with its jaws (J. Curtis and N. Tallis, Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia, 2005, 124 no. 125); a silver one-handled jug of very similar design from İkiztepe in Lydia (I. Özgen and J. Öztürk, Heritage Recovered: The Lydian Treasure (1996), no. 12); and the handle of a silver ladle from Toptepe in Lydia, terminating in a pair of lions’ foreparts (Özgen and Öztürk, no. 107).