AMERICAN JOURNAL

OF ARCHAEOLOGY
THE JOURNAL OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA
Volume 111 No. 4 October 2007
AMERICAN JOURNAL
OF ARCHAEOLOGY
THE JOURNAL OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA
EDITORS
Naomi J. Norman, University of Georgia
Editor-in-Chief
ADVISORY BOARD
Jenifer Neils, ex officio
Case Western Reserve University
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS
Kathryn Armstrong Peck, Kimberly A. Berry, Julia Gaviria, Deborah Griesmer, Benjamin Safdie
Madeleine J. Donachie
Managing Editor
Vanessa Lord
Assistant Editor
Madeleine J. Donachie
Managing Editor
Vanessa Lord
Assistant Editor
John G. Younger
Editor, Book Reviews, University of Kansas
Elizabeth Bartman
Editor, Museum Reviews
John G. Younger
Editor, Book Reviews, University of Kansas
Elizabeth Bartman
Editor, Museum Reviews
Susan E. Alcock
Brown University
John Bodel
Brown University
Larissa Bonfante
New York University
John F. Cherry
Brown University
Jack L. Davis
University of Cincinnati
Janet DeLaine
Oxford University
Natalie Boymel Kampen
Columbia University
Claire L. Lyons
Getty Research Institute
Andrew M.T. Moore
Rochester Institute of Technology
Ian Morris
Stanford University
Sarah P. Morris
University of California at Los Angeles
Robin Osborne
Cambridge University
Jeremy Rutter
Dartmouth College
Michele Renee Salzman
University of California at Riverside
Guy D.R. Sanders
American School of Classical Studies at Athens
Andrew Stewart
University of California at Berkeley
Lea Stirling
University of Manitoba
Cheryl A. Ward
Florida State University
Katherine Welch
Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Greg Woolf
University of St. Andrews
Susan E. Alcock
Brown University
John Bodel
Brown University
Larissa Bonfante
New York University
John F. Cherry
Brown University
Jack L. Davis
University of Cincinnati
Janet DeLaine
Oxford University
Natalie Boymel Kampen
Columbia University
Claire L. Lyons
Getty Research Institute
Andrew M.T. Moore
Rochester Institute of Technology
Ian Morris
Stanford University
Sarah P. Morris
University of California at Los Angeles
Robin Osborne
Cambridge University
Jeremy Rutter
Dartmouth College
Michele Renee Salzman
University of California at Riverside
Guy D.R. Sanders
American School of Classical Studies at Athens
Andrew Stewart
University of California at Berkeley
Lea Stirling
University of Manitoba
Cheryl A. Ward
Florida State University
Katherine Welch
Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Greg Woolf
University of St. Andrews
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, the journal of the Archaeological Institute of America,
was founded in 1885; the second series was begun in 1897. Indices have been published for volumes 111
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795
MUSEUM REVIEW
Iran and Its Neighbors in Late Antiquity:
Art of the Sasanian Empire (224642 C.E.)
JOEL WALKER
American Journal of Archaeology 111 (2007) 795801
Glass, Gilding, and Grand Design: Art of
Sasanian Iran (224642), Asia Society, New
York, 8 February20 May 2007, organized by
Franoise Demange.
Glass, Gilding, and Grand Design: Art of
Sasanian Iran (224642), edited by Franoise
Demange. Pp. 48, b&w figs. 10, color figs. 32. The
Asia Society, New York 2007. $29.95. ISBN 978-0-
87848-106-4 (paper).
Les Perses sassanides: Fastes dun empire oubli
(224642), edited by Franoise Demange. Pp. 240,
b&w figs. 60, color figs. 200. ditions Paris Muses,
Paris 2007. 44. ISBN 2-87900-957-X (paper).
It has been nearly 30 years since the last major exhibition
of Sasanian art in North America. The Royal Hunter: Art of
the Sasanian Empire, presented at the Asia House Gallery
in New York in 1978, introduced visitors to the treasures of
the Sasanian empire (224642 C.E.) and explored that em-
pires enduring influence on the arts and culture of western
and Central Asia.
1
This spring, the art of Late Antique Iran
returns to New York in a smaller, but still impressive, exhi-
bition that will delight anyone interested in the ancient or
medieval Middle East. Silver plates, glass vessels, and other
objects borrowed from six major American museums and
several private collections testify to the luxury and exquisite
taste of the Sasanian empires court and provincial aristoc-
racy.
2
Unfortunately, the slim catalogue accompanying the
exhibition is a disappointment, particularly in comparison
with the handsome and much larger French-language cata-
logue on which it is based.
Both the original exhibition in Paris and its sibling in New
York were organized by Franoise Demange, chief conservator
in the Department of Oriental Antiquities at the Louvre. The
French exhibition, hosted by the Muse Cernuschi, displayed
more than 200 objects, including silver vessels from Iran and
St. Petersburg that had not previously circulated in Europe.
3

Partly for legal reasons discussed below, the Asia Society was
only able to bring about 75 of these objects to New York. Even
in this reduced form, the exhibition presents an exquisite
cross-section of the luxury arts of ancient Iran.
The exhibition begins with an arresting image of royal
power: Shapur I (r. 240270), the king of kings, mounted
on his horse before a group of sword-bearing companions.
This rock-cut relief from Naqsh-i Radjab, reproduced on a
large color placard at the front of the exhibition, is among
the approximately 35 Sasanian reliefs still visible in western
Iran. All but a few of these reliefs were carved in the dynastys
heartland of Fars (southwestern Iran), where Shapurs father,
Ardashir (r. 224240), ruled as a vassal of the Parthian empire.
In 224, after vanquishing his Parthian overlord, Artabanus IV,
Ardashir consolidated his control of an empire that stretched
from the Roman frontier in northern Mesopotamia to the
borders of Central Asia.
4
The art of this new empire boldly
proclaimed its renewal of the glories of ancient Iran. On the
cliffs at Naqsh-i Rustam in Fars, Ardashir and his son Shapur
I had depictions of themselves carved directly beneath the
monumental tombs of the Achaemenids. The descendants
of Shapur I commissioned further panels during the late
third and fourth centuries, depicting scenes of martial valor,
investiture by the gods, court processions, and hunting.
5
All
the relief panels are large (47 m ht. x 810 m lgth.), and
one (the depiction of Ardashirs victory over the Parthians
at Firuzabad) is nearly 20 m long. In rare instances, panels
1
Harper 1978. Earlier surveys of Persian art had already
emphasized the far-reaching inuence of Sasanian artistic
and cultural models (see, e.g., Ghirshman 1962, 118339).
2
Demange 2007 (New York), 9 (paraphrasing a description
of the court of Hormizd IV [r. 579590] by the Byzantine his-
torian Theophylact Simocatta). For the full list of contributing
museums and sponsors, see Demange 2007 (New York), 8.
3
Objects appearing for the rst time in western Europe in-
clude Demange 2007 (Paris), nos. 23, 30, 49, 713, 75 (silver
vessels from the Hermitage); 25, 44 (silver vessels from Teh-
ran); 91 (a glass pitcher from Tehran); 128 (a tapestry from
the Hermitage).
4
On the somewhat nebulous extent of Sasanian conquests
in the East, see Wiesehfer 1987, 37274; 1996, 18485.
5
See the overview by Haerinck in Demange 2007 (Paris),
3445. The kings Bahram I (r. 273276), Bahram II (r. 276
293), Narseh (r. 293302), and Hormizd II (r. 302309) all
erected panels in Fars. Despite the length of his reign, Shapur
II (r. 309379) erected panels at only two sites: Naqsh-i Rus-
tam and Bishapur.
JOEL WALKER 796 [AJA 111
were placed in the empires provinces, such as the image of
Shapur I slaying an Indian rhinoceros that was recently dis-
covered in a remote valley of northern Afghanistan.
6
The iconography of royal power developed for these
cliff reliefs was emulated in many other forms of Sasanian
art. Images of the royal hunt on silver plates were especially
prestigious, their production apparently controlled by the
Sasanian court between the fourth and sixth centuries. The
Asia Society exhibition includes three of these hunting plates,
each depicting a lone king vanquishing his prey: two lions, a
well-horned stag, and a pair of wild boars. The stag-hunt dish
from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (fig. 1)
is typical in several respects. Partially gilded, the large plate
(23.4 cm diam.) shows a haloed king, identified by his crown
as Yazdegird I (r. 399421), piercing a stag with a crescent-
tipped spear. The king, handsomely dressed with ribbons
fluttering behind his head and waist, has just killed the deer,
whose tongue hangs sideways from its mouth. The image of-
fers a snapshot of royal valor, reflecting the kings possession
of divine favor (Middle Persian xwarrah). Prudence Harper
has argued persuasively that this and other similar hunting
plates were distributed as signs of royal favor or as diplomatic
gifts. While the provenance of individual vessels is rarely pre-
cise (the label for the Metropolitan Museum plate lists its
origin as Iran?), their inscriptions and overall distribution
prove that Sasanian and post-Sasanian silver circulated widely
across the eastern Iranian world and beyond.
Consider another of the hunting plates included in the
exhibition: a gilded fourth-century piece (23.4 cm diam.)
depicting a boar hunt. The plate, originally purchased on
the antiquities market in Kabul (and now held in a private
collection in New York),
7
bears the usual hallmarks of Sasa-
nian silver but with several distinctive features. The plates
central figure wears a crown that mimics but does not exactly
match the official crowns recorded on fourth-century Sasa-
nian coins. He is probably a Sasanian vassal king or prince
who governed in eastern Iran or Bactria. A Bactrian inscrip-
tion on the plates exterior, which reads Tudak, seems to
refer to one of the vessels later owners rather than the fig-
ure depicted on it.
8
The king (or prince) is shown spearing
a massive boar that lunges at him while he pivots his head
and raises his right leg to fend off the charge of a second
boar. Though attacked from both sides, he remains in full
command of the situation, his royal ribbons fluttering be-
hind him as a sign of triumph. His richly embroidered gar-
ments, pearl-drop earring, and the sword that hangs from
his side all recall, with minor variations, the depiction of
King Yazdegird on the stag-hunt plate from the Metropolitan
Museum (see fig. 1).
9
Harpers catalogue entry suggests, as
the closest iconographic parallel, a late third-century hunt-
ing plate preserved in the tomb of a Tang dynasty courtier
in northern China (Shanxi Province).
10
Such geographically
remote comparisons are inescapable for Sasanian art histo-
rians. Relatively few of the objects in the Asia Society exhi-
bition come from documented excavations in Iran or, for
that matter, any other part of the Sasanian empire. Some,
like the Kabul boar-hunt plate, circulated in the Kushano-
Sasanian frontier region. Other luxury items were produced
somewhere in eastern Iran but only preserved in the tombs
and treasuries of eastern Asia.
11
The iconography and designs
of such Sasanian art remained current through much of
Asia deep into the Islamic period. The outstanding collection
of Sasanian and post-Sasanian silver at the State Hermitage
Museum in St. Petersburg is largely composed of vessels ex-
6
Western scholars rst learned of the relief in 2001 after
Taliban partisans attempted to destroy it. For a brilliant re-
construction of the reliefs iconography and signicance, see
Grenet 2005. Demange (2007 [Paris], 39) provides a photo-
graph and brief description.
7
The dish belongs to the collection of Shelby White and
Leon Levy, whose foundation was among the major sponsors
of the Asia Society exhibition.
8
Tudak is not a standard Middle Persian name but could be
Bactrian. An earlier Pahlavi inscription species the vessels
weight as 39 ster, 1 drahm, and 4 dang, roughly equivalent to
638 g (22.5 oz). For parallels and weight conversion charts,
see Brunner 1974.
9
Yazdegird is depicted with two swords, a horizontal chest
strap, fringed pants, and a more elongated earring (among
other differences).
10
The Chinese tomb, found near Datong in northern
Shanxi Province, is dated by the death of its occupant to ca.
504 C.E. For an illuminating comparison of the two plates, see
Harper (1990) as well as Overlaets remarks in Splendeur des
Sassanides 1993, no. 57.
11
The Shoso-in Treasury in Nara, Japan, preserves important
Sasanian and Sasanian-inspired silver and glass vessels as well
as textiles. Although not included in this exhibition, the ob-
jects provide key parallels. See, e.g., Whitehouses (Demange
2007 [Paris], 14042) comments on the Shoso-in glassware.
Fig. 1. King Yazdegird I (r. 399421) killing a stag, fifth cen-
tury C.E., partially gilded silver plate, 23.4 cm diam., 4.4 cm
ht. with foot, 713 g wt., possibly from Iran. New York, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund,
1970, 1970.6 ( 1995 Metropolitan Museum of Art).
ART OF THE SASANIAN EMPIRE 2007] 797
cavated from tombs in the Perm region, along the banks of
the Kama River, in northern Russia.
12
The dating and origin of many of these luxury goods
remain elusive. As Demange emphasizes in her preface to
the Paris catalogue, the category Sasanian art is inescap-
ably ambiguous, encompassing objects that may have been
produced in workshops outside the borders of the empire
or even long after the fall of its capital in 642 C.E.
13
The so-
called Anahita plate, loaned from the Bibliothque Nationale
de France, exemplifies the challenge of interpreting such
items (fig. 2). This large plate (25.8 cm diam.), dating to the
seventh or eighth century, depicts at its center a nude female
figureformerly identified as the goddess Anahitasitting
on the back of a fantastic gryphon-like beast. Eight figures
stand around the plates perimeter, organized in four fac-
ing pairs and dressed in long robes and flowing sashes and
different hairstyles.
14
The figures, men and women, bear a
variety of objects: a bowl of grapes, a pail, a bird, and appar-
ently a polo stick, among other offerings. Do these gifts
have a precise symbolic significance, or do they represent a
melange of motifs borrowed indiscriminately from Graeco-
Bactrian and Sasanian iconography? The brief catalogue entry
skirts the question. Such reticence may be advisable, given
how little we know about the plates origin. The seventh- or
eighth-century workshop in which it was produced could have
been in northern Iran, eastern Iran, or Central Asia. Traded
up the Volga River, the Anahita plate eventually came into
the possession, a millennium later, of a Russian prince who
sold it to the Cabinet des Antiques in Paris.
15
Other items in the exhibition highlight Sasanian artistic
exchange with the Roman empire. This theme has been a
staple of the fields historiography since the 1930s, when the
French excavations at Bishapur in Fars uncovered a marvel-
ous set of polychrome figural mosaics on the floor of a third-
century Sasanian fire temple complex.
16
Though inspired by
Graeco-Roman models, the Bishapur mosaics present a dis-
tinctively Sasanian adaptation of the decorative techniques
of contemporary Antioch. Classical geometric designs jux-
taposed with satyr masks separate a series of panels depict-
ing female entertainers. In one panel, a barefooted dancer
with ankle rings and flounced skirt is shown in the midst of
a spin.
17
In another, a seated musician wearing little more
than her gold bracelets and pearls plucks a six-string harp
(fig. 3).
18
On a technical level, the Bishapur mosaics are a
grade or two below the mosaic art of third-century Syria. The
rendering of the harpists seminude body looks clumsy in
comparison to the lithe maenads and goddesses depicted at
Antioch and Apamea. The Bishapur mosaics may be the work
of an indigenous school in Fars rather than first-generation
Syrian artisans captured when Shapur I sacked Antioch
in 260. In either case, they illustrate the creative fusion of
Graeco-Roman techniques and Persian themes that is one
of the hallmarks of Sasanian art.
Gradually during the fourth and fifth centuries, Sasanian
artists mastered their own forms of interior decor. Stucco
sculpture and painting replaced mosaics as the principal me-
dia for the embellishment of Sasanian buildings.
19
The exhibi-
tion includes several choice examples of this stucco sculpture
recovered during the Anglo-American excavations at Kish
(19231933) in central Iraq, and the German-American
excavations at Ctesiphon (19281932). In stucco, as on the
silver vessels, images of royal power and wild or mythological
animals predominate. A royal bust, now owned by the Field
Museum of Natural History in Chicago, was one of 14 identi-
cal busts that once lined the walls of a fifth-century courtyard
at Kish (fig. 4).
20
Modern viewers should probably imagine
12
For a map, see Harper 1981, g. 2. The Byzantine and
Sasanian silver found in the region mostly dates to the period
between ca. 500 and 650 C.E. Noonan (1982) provides a lucid
introduction to the evidence.
13
Demange 2007 (Paris), 20. See Harper (1971, 501): It
is generally recognized that it is impossible in terms of style
to separate with any certainty the art of the end of the Sasa-
nian period from that of the succeeding century of Islamic
conquest.
14
Demange 2007 (New York), 40; 2007 (Paris), no. 47.
15
Harper 1971, 508 n. 4. The Cabinet des Antiques pur-
chased the plate from P.-D. Saltikov in 1843.
16
For the placement of the iwan of the mosaics at Bish-
apur, see Splendeur des Sassanides (1993, 53), where Huff
identies the entire complex as a monumental re temple
built by Shapur I. Ghirshman (1962, 13859) provides a well-
illustrated overview based on the excavations he led at Bish-
apur between 1935 and 1941.
17
Demange 2007 (Paris), no. 19 (included in the Asia Soci-
ety exhibition but not illustrated in its catalogue).
18
Demange 2007 (New York), 38; 2007 (Paris), no. 20.
19
In both areas, Sasanian artists could draw upon Parthian
antecedents, though these are poorly documented in the ar-
chaeological record.
20
Demange 2007 (New York), 36; 2007 (Paris), no. 3.
Fig. 2. The Anahita plate, seventh or eighth century, silver
with gilded background and reliefs, 25.8 cm diam., 1,212 g
wt. Paris, Bibliothque Nationale de France, Dpartment des
Monnaies, Mdailles et Antiques, inv. no. D 3404 (1854) (
Bibliothque Nationale de France).
JOEL WALKER 798 [AJA 111
the kings impressive coiffure, crenelated crown, and pearl
jewelry in color, since traces of paint survive on other similar
fragments. Excavations at Kish also yielded the austere bust
of a female figure, possibly the goddess Anahita.
21
More com-
mon than human or divine figures, however, were images
of beasts, especially animals of the huntlions, bears, wild
boars, and mountain goats. Two plaques from Ctesiphon,
now held by the Metropolitan Museum, provide a glimpse
into the style of domestic iconography popular with late Sa-
sanian elites. These sixth-century plaques show a charging
bear and a wild boar, each emerging from its customary land-
scape.
22
Such scenes seem to have symbolized, by metonymy,
the glory of the royal hunt. Both Graeco-Roman and Islamic
literary sources refer to scenes of the royal hunt painted on
the walls of Sasanian palaces and mansions.
23
The historian
Ammianus Marcellinus, on campaign in Mesopotamia in
363, noted that the houses of the Persian nobles were be-
decked with nothing but various forms of slaughter and
wars (varias caedes et bella).
24
Other Graeco-Roman viewers
farther from the battlefront were more favorably disposed
toward Sasanian art, even incorporating its elements into
their own domestic decor. In the suburbs of Antioch, Am-
mianus native city, some artisans began to adopt (and adapt)
Sasanian artistic motifs during the Late Roman period. In
the House of the Rams at Daphne, a mosaic laid in the late
fifth or early sixth century shows paired rams heads over a
pair of wings with fluttering ribbons beneath. Its design el-
ements, though modified to suit Graeco-Roman taste, are
unmistakably Sasanian.
25
Artistic dialogue between the empires of Rome and Iran
was still more pronounced in the moveable arts, notably tex-
tiles and glass. On a pair of wool leggings woven in Egypt ca.
600 and excavated at Antino in 1908,
26
an enthroned Persian
king holds his sword before him in a pose well known from
Sasanian artmost notably on the exquisite and roughly
contemporary Cup of Solomon in the Bibliothque Natio-
nale.
27
The leggings from Antino epitomize the problem of
Sasanian textiles. The necropolis in which they were found
revealed no other signs of foreign occupation; the occupants
of its tombs were apparently Byzantine elites buried before
the Persian occupation of Egypt (619629). The garments
worn by these elites borrow extensively from Sasanian models,
while their material and some aspects of their iconography
attest to Roman influence.
28
Other Sasanian-inspired textiles
found in Syria, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and even in the
reliquaries of medieval Europe present analogous ambigui-
21
Demange 2007 (Paris), no. 4 (included in the Asia Soci-
ety exhibition but not in its catalogue).
22
Demange 2007 (Paris), nos. 11, 12.
23
For references, see Walker 2006, 142.
24
Amm. Marc. Res Gestae 24.6.3 (Rolfe 1940, 45657).
25
For images and analysis of the mosaic, which is now in the
Worchester Art Museum, see Kondoleon 2000, no. 20 (with a
similar example, no. 25). The rams heads appear in the bor-
der of the mosaic; its central panel is lost.
26
Demange 2007 (Paris), nos. 111, 112. One leg is now at
the Louvre (and was included in the Asia Society exhibition);
the other half belongs to the Textile Museum of Lyons.
27
Demange 2007 (Paris), no. 35.
28
See, in addition to the catalogue entries, Bnazeths (De-
mange 2007 [Paris], 15760, esp. 158) introductory essay on
the long-standing debate over the Antino textiles.
Fig. 3. Mosaic of a harpist, ca. 260 C.E., 117 cm ht., 85 cm wt., Bishapur, Iran. Paris, Muse du Louvre,
Dpartment des Antiquits Orientales, inv. no. AO 26169 (F. Raux; Runion des Muses Nationaux/Art
Resource New York).
ART OF THE SASANIAN EMPIRE 2007] 799
ties. While few, if any, of these textiles were woven in Iran,
their designs testify to a vigorous dialogue with Sasanian
textile workshops.
29
The Sasanian policy of deporting and
resettling foreign captives contributed to the formation of
this koine in Late Antique textiles. The artisans of Bishapur
under Shapur II (r. 309379) included Christian weavers
descended from Roman captives seized in Syria during the
third and fourth centuries.
30
The question of what distinguishes Sasanian art also ap-
plies to the seven glass vessels in the Asia Society exhibition.
Consider the beautiful semiconical goblet (or lamp) now
held by the Corning Museum of Glass (fig. 5).
31
Its pattern
of concave decoration on transparent glass is typical of Sa-
sanian workshops, which seem to have used the same tools
as gem-cutters to incise and polish mold-blown pieces after
they cooled. Yet the form and decoration of the vessel, with its
row of blue glass inserts, closely resembles well-documented
Roman designs of the fourth century. David Whitehouse,
the worlds leading expert on Sasanian glassware, questions
whether it is even Sasanian in origin.
32
A long (30.5 cm) green
glass tube now in Berlin represents a more definite Sasanian
vessel type, since fragments of similar tubes were found in ex-
cavations at Nineveh in northern Iraq, Qasr-i Abu Nasr near
Shiraz, and Takht-i Sulayman in northwestern Iran.
33
Once
sealed with metal caps, these tubes may have been used to
store documents, though there is not yet proof for this hy-
pothesis. The tubes remain, for now, one of many unsolved
puzzles of Sasanian art and archaeology.
Despite its strengths, the Asia Society exhibition ultimately
presents an incomplete and somewhat imbalanced view of
the Sasanian empire. Its focus on moveable art and that arts
symbolism illuminates Sasanian high culture but only hints
at the world beyond the court and aristocratic mansions.
The exhibitions title (Gold, Gilding, and Grand Design)
accurately reflects this focus. One would need another, very
different, exhibition to explore the material culture of the
man on the street in ancient Bishapur or Ctesiphonnot
to mention the social world of his wife, servants, and country
cousins. One hopes that the next Sasanian exhibition will
tell us more about the lives of ordinary people in the Sasa-
nian world. The exhibition largely neglects, for instance,
current fieldwork in Iran, where excavations by both local
and European archaeologists are producing valuable new
data on Sasanian cities and villages.
34
The archaeology of
post-Soviet Central Asia and the Persian Gulf are similarly
ignored.
35
In the long run, such new fieldwork, combined
with archival research on much earlier excavations,
36
will be
crucial for helping us see beyond the shimmering beauty of
Sasanian court art.
The hieratic quality of Sasanian court art also masks im-
portant changes in the empires religious demography. The
exhibition emphasizes the role of Zoroastrianism as the state
religion of the empire. At one level, this generalization is
correct: a hierarchy of Zoroastrian priests served a wide
range of administrative and judicial functions throughout
the empire.
37
Sasanian gems and seal impressions preserve
the names and rank of many of these priests, while other
29
These connections are also documented in depictions of
Sasanian garments (see, e.g., the meticulous study of womens
clothing by Goldman 1997).
30
For the story of Pusai, chief craftsman and then Chris-
tian martyr executed in the reign of Shapur II, see Wiesehfer
1996, 19293; Walker 2006, 22223.
31
Demange 2007 (Paris), no. 97.
32
Demange (2007 [Paris], 153) is equally cautious about the
vessels date (fourth to seventh century). The catalogue en-
try lists Iran for its provenance but does not specify when or by
whom it was purchased.
33
Demange 2007 (Paris), no. 84. The Asia Society exhibi-
tion includes a similar tube from a private collection.
34
For orientation, see the homepage of the Sasanika project
(http://www.sasanika.com). In 2001, the project launched a
new bilingual journal, Name-ye Bastan: The International Journal
of Ancient Iran, which has increased dialogue between Iranian
archaeologists and the international scholarly community.
35
See, e.g., Puschnigg (2006, 140) on the Sasanian nds
from Merv in Turkmenistan. For the archaeology of Sasanian
sites in the Persian Gulfconspicuously blank on the map in
the exhibition cataloguesee any recent issue of the journal
Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy.
36
See, e.g., Reade (2001) on the largely unpublished Sasa-
nian material from the British excavations at Nineveh.
37
See Gyselens (Demange 2007 [New York], 18) comments
on the Zoroastrian priestly hierarchy as the national Mazdean
church.
Fig. 4. Bust of a Sasanian king, stucco, probably fifth century,
51.5 cm ht., from Palace II, Kish, central Iraq. Chicago, Field
Museum of Natural History, inv. no. 236400a (R. Testa;
Field Museum of Natural History, A109938c).
JOEL WALKER 800 [AJA 111
seals bear religious symbols or slogans such as Confidence
in the Gods!
38
Sasanian rulers presented themselves as the
defenders of the good religion represented by such max-
ims. Yet their loyalty to the Zoroastrian priesthood was rarely
absolute.
39
Other religious groupsChristians, Jews, Man-
ichaeans, Buddhists, and various groups of polytheists and
Gnosticsmaintained a significant presence in many parts
of the empire.
40
In Mesopotamia, Christians appear to have
constituted the demographic majority by the Late Sasanian
period. The court of Khusro II (r. 590628) was packed with
Christian advisors, doctors, and philosophers. The exhibition
barely mentions this larger array of Sasanian religions. They
receive only a brief paragraph in the catalogue, together
with a photograph of a small stucco plaque, discovered at
Susa, of an unidentified Christian saint holding a Bible.
41

Admittedly, there are real hurdles to presenting this more
complex story of Sasanian religious demography. The ar-
chaeology of the empires Christian community is dispersed
and fragmentary, and the Jewish community of central Iraq,
although it produced the Babylonian Talmud, is even more
poorly attested; not a single Sasanian synagogue has yet been
recorded. Still, some balance could have been achieved by
including in the exhibition a few of the inscribed incanta-
tion bowls from Nippur, Kish, or other sites in southern and
central Iraq. These magic bowls, many now held in private
collections, dramatically illustrate the broad spectrum of
Jewish, Christian, and polytheist traditions that flourished
in late Sasanian Mesopotamia.
42
Finally, the contemporary political context of this exhibi-
tion is significant for understanding its goals and parameters.
The Asia Society organized this show of Iranian art during
a period of ominous threats between the United States and
Iranian governments.
43
Indeed, the exhibition was nearly
derailed by American bureaucratic intransigence. Customs
officers at John F. Kennedy International Airport temporar-
ily impounded objects destined for the exhibition under the
law prohibiting importation of any art of Iranian origin. The
materials were released only a few days before the opening.
44

In this context, the Asia Society deserves particular praise for
organizing Glass, Gilding, and Grand Design. Although less
than half the size of its sibling exhibition in Paris, the New
York exhibition still constitutes a major contribution that
will enhance both public and scholarly awareness of Irans
remarkable cultural heritage.
The exhibitions overall design and spatial organization
were highly effective. Viewers moved smoothly from the intro-
ductory timeline (beautifully illustrated with oversized color
images of Sasanian gold coins) through a series of darkened
rooms with well-lit cases. An optional cell phone audio tour
offered concise, well-articulated explanations of individual
pieces, such as silver- and gold-embellished sword sheaths,
golden harness ornaments, and an especially fine bronze table
leg in the form of a gryphon.
45
The display of the seals was
awkward but adequate under the circumstances of the open-
ing. If given more time, the curators might have found ways
to integrate more Persian voices into the exhibition, for ex-
ample, by adding placards with excerpts from Sasanian texts.
The exhibitions most serious shortcoming, as noted above,
is its English-language catalogue. Although its essays and
photographs are excellent, its volume (47 reduced-format
pages) is simply inadequate for the topic.
The French-language catalogue, by contrast, is a gold
mine. Its essays, composed by leading scholars from Belgium,
France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, provide clear
and well-documented introductions to every major category
of Sasanian art. Its more than 250 illustrations, with approxi-
Fig. 5. Goblet or lamp, transparent, very pale green glass with
translucent blue blobs, fourth to seventh century, 9.3 cm
ht., provenance unknown but probably Iran. Corning, New
York, Corning Museum of Glass, inv. no. 63.1.21 ( Corning
Museum of Glass).
38
Demange 2007 (Paris), nos. 146, 157, 160, 165, 168, 171,
177 (seals of priests); nos. 153, 158 (religious symbols); nos.
134, 174, 175 (religious slogans).
39
For a more nuanced view of the relationship between Sa-
sanian kings and the Zoroastrian priestly establishment, see
Rubin 2000, 64751.
40
Morony (1984) remains the best general survey of Late
Antique Iraqs various ethnic and religious communities.
41
Demange 2007 (New York), 19. Demange (2007 [Paris])
includes two Christian seals.
42
For a sensible, well-illustrated introduction, see Morony
2003.
43
In his preface to the catalogue, the Asia Societys presi-
dent, Vishakha Desai, expresses his hope that the exhibition
will contribute to greater knowledge and appreciation of
Iran that can inform our current thinking about the region
(Demange 2007 [New York], 6).
44
For the story of these events, see the review in the New York
Times (16 February 2007) B31.
45
Demange 2007 (Paris), nos. 135, 136 (sheaths); 138 (bri-
dle ornaments, similar to pieces found in Avar horse burials in
Hungary and Austria); 51 (the gryphon reminiscent of Achae-
menid art).
ART OF THE SASANIAN EMPIRE 2007] 801
mately 200 in color, provide superb material for teaching.
Furthermore, each item in the catalogue comes with a full
bibliography that can be used as a foundation for further
research.
46
A full English translation of this French catalogue
would be an invaluable resource for all students of this last
great empire of antiquity.
university of washington
jwalker@u.washington.edu
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Ghirshman, R. 1962. Iran: Parthes et Sassanides. Paris: Galli-
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Goldman, B. 1997. Womens Clothing in the Sasanian Era.
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Grenet, F. 2005. Dcouverte dun relief sassanide dans le
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46
The bibliographies focus on particular objects does, however, mean that they often omit relevant thematic articles on Sasanian
art and history, such as those found in the Encyclopaedia Iranica.