page_title: Persian art
section_title: Luristan bronzes
hierarchical_section_title: Persian art / Luristan bronzes
caption_attribution_description: English: Exhibit in the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Photography was permitted in the museum without restriction. This artwork is old enough so that it is in the public domain.
context_page_description: Persian art or Iranian art has one of the richest art heritages in world history and has been strong in many media including architecture, painting, weaving, pottery, calligraphy, metalworking and sculpture. At different times, influences from the art of neighbouring civilizations have been very important, and latterly Persian art gave and received major influences as part of the wider styles of Islamic art. Rock art in Iran is its most ancient surviving art. Iranian architecture is covered at that article.
  From the Achaemenid Empire of 550 BC–330 BC for most of the time a large Iranian-speaking state has ruled over areas similar to the modern boundaries of Iran, and often much wider areas, sometimes called Greater Iran, where a process of cultural Persianization left enduring results even when rulership separated. The courts of successive dynasties have generally led the style of Persian art, and court-sponsored art has left many of the most impressive survivals.
  In ancient times the surviving monuments of Persian art are notable for a tradition concentrating on the human figure and animals.
context_section_description: Luristan bronzes (rarely "Lorestān", "Lorestāni" etc. in sources in English) are small cast objects decorated with bronze sculptures from the Early Iron Age which have been found in large numbers in Lorestān Province and Kermanshah in west-central Iran. They include a great number of ornaments, tools, weapons, horse-fittings and a smaller number of vessels including situlae, and those found in recorded excavations are generally found in burials. The ethnicity of the people who created them remains unclear, though they may well have been Persian, possibly related to the modern Lur people who have given their name to the area. They probably date to between about 1000 and 650 BC.
  The bronzes tend to be flat and use openwork, like the related metalwork of Scythian art.  They represent the art of a nomadic or transhumant people, for whom all possessions needed to be light and portable, and necessary objects such as weapons, finials (perhaps for tent-poles), horse-harness fittings, pins, cups and  small fittings are highly decorated over their small surface area. Representations of animals are common, especially goats or sheep with large horns, and the forms and styles are distinctive and inventive. The "Master of Animals" motif, showing a human positioned between and grasping two confronted animals is common but typically highly stylized. Some female "mistress of animals" are seen.
  The Ziwiye hoard of about 700 BC is a collection of objects, mostly in metal, perhaps not all in fact found together, of about the same date, probably showing the art of the Persian cities of the period.  Delicate metalwork from Iron Age II times has been found at Hasanlu and still earlier at Marlik.
caption: Horse bit cheekpiece with "Master of Animals" motif, about 700 BC
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