The Hasanlu Gold Bowl a View From Transc

8/18/2019 The Hasanlu Gold Bowl a View From Transc

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Yeki Bud, Yeki Nabud

Essays on the Archaeology of Iran

In honor of William M. Sumner

Naomi F. Miller and Kamyar Abdi, eds.

The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA

2003


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CHAPTER 21

THE HASANLU GOLD "BOWL"

A Viewfrom Transcaucasia

K A R EN S . R UB IN S O N

I NTHE COUR5E OF EXCAVATION, precious objects

are occasionally found that stimulate extensive discus-

sion and study by virtue of their special, even unique,

nature. Such is the so-called Gold Bowl excavated at

Hasanlu, Iran in 1958 (Barrelet 1984; Winter 1989). J Wil-

liam Sumner's career in Iranian archaeology, as well as my

own, began at Hasanlu. This discussion is offered in recol-

lection of those days.

When the Gold Bowl was first published by Edith

Porada, she noted a few comparisons between the piece

from Iran and the silver goblet [rom the excavations at

Ti-ialeti, in what is today the Republic of Georgia (figures

21.1-21.4). Porada (1959:22) remarked, "While certain de-

tails of costume and furniture such as the tail-like tassels of

the garments and the hull's feet of the throne suggest some

relationship with Hasaniu customs as reflected in the bowl,

and while even the chinless short-bearded men seem like

caricatures of the ethnic type found on the bowl, the style

of the Caucasus vessel is stiffer, cruder, less accomplished."

She further suggested that the artists who produced the

Trialeti goblet may "have been influenced by Hasanlu"

(Porada 1959:22).

We now know that the Tria1eti goblet is earlier than the

Hasan1u "bowl," since the goblet was found in a burial dat-

ing to the first few centuries of the second millennium BCE.(Miron and Orthmann 1995:238; Rubinson 1977:243) and

the Gold Bowl is later, made either toward the end of the

second millennium or the beginning of the first (Winter

1989:90-92). Since these earlier discoveries, a further

silver piece belonging to the Trialeti culture that sheds light

on this problem has become available. It is a goblet exca-

vated from the G rand North Kurgan at Karashamb in

Armenia (Oganesian 1992; Pilipossian and Santrot 1996:65-

67). Like the other two vessels, the goblet from Karashamb

has human figures with tails attached to their garments and

offering stands (in this case with objects on them) with

hoofed animal feet, as well as figures with a similar kind of

stylized face, although beardless. In addition, the Karashamb

goblet has, in the third register, a group of daggers or swords

suspended in space, an image also found on the Hasanlu

bowl (Pilipossian and San trot 1996:66; Shahnazarian and

Mkrtchian N.D.: 16; Tiratsian 1992:39 [where the image is

reverscdj) .

Since the Transcaucasian silver vessels and the Hasanlu

Gold Bowl are separated by at least five hundred years,

what might explain the occurrence of this shared imagery

in both areas? The imagery does not seem to be native to

Transcaucasia but rather borrowed from Anatolia, imagery

recorded particularly in the Anatolian-style seals of the

Assyrian colony period (Rubinson 1977:243,N.D.). Itis likely

that the transfer of this imagery to the Trialeti cultural

sphere is a reflection of an e conomic exchange, a

phenomenon known in other times and places, as, for

example, the West Asian imagery, particularly Sasanian,found in Tang China (Vollmer et al. 1983:46--47,65,70-

73). But given the lack of contemporaneity of the Tnaleti

culture and the Gold Bowl, regardless of its date of

manufacture, economic interchange cannot be the

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21.1 Detail of Hasanlu Gold "Bowl" showing offering table/altar. Photograph courtesy"of the University

of PennsylsxmioMuseuui (neg. #835-78114:31)

21.2 Detail of Thaleti silver goblet showing offering table/altar. Photograph bX KS. Rubinson, with

perm issio n 0 / the National Museum cf Oecrgia

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Karen S . Rubinson

21.3 DetailofHasanlu Gold"Bowl"showing"hero"with aruma!tails suspendedfromhis garment.

Photograph courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Museum (neg. #535- 78113:0)

explanation in this case. Is it possible to suggest another

plausible explanation for how, as Burney (Burney and Lang

1972:95) puts it, the Trialeti culture imagery is "echoed"

in the Gold Bowl?

The ethnolinguistic and cultural context of the silver

vessels of the Trlalcti culture is not certain, since we have

no written documents from the area (Dzhaparidze 1995:87).

The excavator made the case that the Karashamb goblet

displays tales of an Indo-European tradition, with the boar

hunt as the essential element, also found in myths of the

Greeks, Ger-mans, Scandinavians, Celts and others

(Oganesian 1992:97-99). The boar hunt, however, is a sub-

sidiary motif on this piece, much smaller than the two

central registers, and seems to me not visually significant

enough to support Oganesian's argument for the centrality

of the boar hunt to the myth depicted on the vessel. Addi-

tionally, the imagery on the Trialeti goblet has often been

compared to that found in Hittite art, from the original

publication by Kuftin (1941:89-92), where he compared

the standing human figures to those at Yazrhkayawho wear

similar garments, to recent exhibition catalogues where

general comparisons of gift-bearing processionals are made

(Miron and Ortlunann 1995:238), sometimes with efforts

to draw ethnolinguistic interpretations (Kuftin 1941:90-

91, 163). These visual parallels are indeed quite striking,

but imagery in Hittite art has Hurrian influence and is not

strictly Indo-European (Archi 1995:2373-2374; Kohlmeyer

1995:2649; Wilhelm 1995:1250).

The Hasanlu Gold Bowl is also found in an archaeologi-

cal milieu without texts, and the ethnolinguistic context of

its manufacture has also been long-discussed (Barrelet

1984:57). Even with some images corresponding closelyto

known Hurrian myth, Winter (1989: 104) concludes only

that "the identification of Hurrian components on the

bowl... has been strengthened" by the investigation of her-

self and others. How much more difficult the situation is

for the identification of the ethnolinguistic/cultural origin

of the Trialeti culture goblets, where no known story can

be clearly seen in the silver images. Nevertheless, there are

arguments to be made for a Hun-ian-related population in

Transcaucasia in the early second millennium, based on the

relationship between the Hurrian and Urartian languages

(Wilhelm 1989:4-6, 1995:1244), and even earlier if one

accepts that the EarlyTranscaucasian culture was Hun-ian-

speaking. Both arguments rely on the evidence for the late

third-millennium appearance of Hurrian names and words

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HE HASANLU GOLD "BOWl:'

21.4 Detail of the Trialeti silver goblet showing walking figures with animal tails suspended from their garments.

Photograph by KS Rubinson, with permission of the National Museum of Georgia

at the northeastern borders of Mesopotamia, and assume

an east Anatolian-Transcaucasian origin for the Hurrian-

speaking population (Burney and Lang 1972:49).

In looking at the silver vessels, there is nothing in the

overall narrative that links the imagery to the Gold Bowl.

Rather, it is the small details noted by Porada, as well as the

weapons placed in the field on the more recently found

Karashamb goblet, also seen on the bowl. Of those, am y

one image, the weapons in the field, may possibly suggest a

tie to known Hurrian myth. The Hurrian connection is

summarized by Winter (1989:95) and need not be repeated

here. It is true that on the Karashamb goblet the weapons

are grouped with shields and bounded by scenes of men

fighting (Pilipossian and Santrot 1996:66; Tiratsian

1992:39). But it might be possible to read the images on

more than one level, both literally and as reference to a

symbolic figure or concept. On the other hand, perhaps

the weapons in the field of the Gold Bowl are a shorthand

reference to the expanded battle seen on the Karashamb

goblet. It may prove to be instructive to collect the

Anatolian-style seals bearing weapons in the field of the

Assyrian trading colony period for comparison. For ex-

ample, O zgU


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Karen S . Rubinson

hoofed table is associated with figures of human form

holding goblets or cups. In her analysis, Winter (1989:95)

stresses the empty top of the piece of furniture as part of

its meaning, so perhaps it is not related to the early sec-

ond millennium examples, of which only the Trialeti goblet

table is unburdened. But it is worth considering that the

'hoofed feet of the altar/table/stool may themselves have

meaning, a motif seen also on a clay tripod stand from

Kultepe Kanesh II (Ozgiic; 1965:86, Pl. XXXII: 100), as

well as on the feet of many Urartian bronzes, including a

candelabrum and cauldron stand (Azarpay 1968:56-58,

Pis. 30,41,47-48) and other pieces of furniture (Merhav

1991:252-253). It is a stretch to take the use of this im-

age in Urartu and connect it to its earlier use in a possible

Hurt-ian-related area in Transcaucasia simply because of

the relationship of the languages (Zimansky 1995.: 1135-

1136), much less extend it to the probably Hurrian context

of the Hasanlu Gold Bowl. However, given the lack of

texts in the latter two areas, such circumstantial evidence

is worth noting.

An equally tenuous tie is the appearance of animal tails

on human-form figures on the three precious-metal objects.

However, this image is rare in the ancient Near East. The

tails illustrated on all three objects are quite different in

appearance; those on the Hasanlu Gold Bowl look like lions'

tails, with tufts on the ends, those on the Trialeti goblet

look like wolves' tails, with bushy long hair along their whole

length, and the tails on the Karashamb goblet, extending

from the figure's waist to the ground in most cases, consist

of a stylized herring-bone pattern that is harder to identify

with a specific animal. The stylization of the Karasharnb

tails is close to that on an Anatolian-style seal from Kultepe

Kanesh, where it appears on a bull-man (Ozgtic; 1965:82,

•

Pl. XX:61). Whether this type of well-known Near Eastern

image was the inspiration for the Transcaucasian metalwork

cannot be proven, but is a tantalizing thought. Perhaps on

the Trialeti-culture metalwork, a Near Eastern pictoral

image was conflated with a native cultural tradition to yield

human-form figures with attached tails, Again, could this

"Ii-anscaucasian image be inspired by stories related to some

of those illustrated on the Gold Bowl?

Of course, imagery traditions had a long life in the ancient

Near East, and were used in many cultures and geographical

areas, transformed in style and even meaning (see, for

example, Winter 1980:11-12). This conservative tendency

in artistic vocabulary may be the explanation for what could

be an accidental similarity between the Trialeti culture and

Hasanlu precious vessels. But given the probable Hurrian

relationships of the Gold Bowl and the possible Hurrian-

related context of Iranscaucasia in the Bronze Age, perhaps

we can say of the Trialeti and Karashamb goblets what Stein

(1989:84) said of the Hasanlu Gold Bowl, which she wrote

" ...ultimately derived from the same cultural milieu in which

the Hurrians also participated prior to their entry on the

northern plain of Syria and Mesopotamia, where the process

of acculturation can be traced from the third millennium."

Only further excavation and study of the Late Bronze and

early Iron Age remains inTranscaucasia and Iran will be able

to help solve this question. Surely William Sumner's students

and colleagues will contribute to this research.

Acknowledgment. Trialeti photographs taken through a

grant from the American Philosophical Society.

NOTE

1. In her important study of this object, Winter (1989) identi-

fied it as a vessel taller than a bowl.

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