edited by Jens M. daehner

and Kenneth Lapatin

powerand pathosBronze sculpture

of the hellenistic world

Under the High Patronage

of the President of the Italian Republic

Power and Pathos. Bronze Sculpture

of the Hellenistic World

Florence, Palazzo Strozzi,

14 March–21 June 2015

Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum,

28 July–1 November 2015

Washington DC, National Gallery

of Art, 6 December 2015–20 March 2016

With the patronage of

Ministero per i Beni e le Attività

Culturali e del Turismo

Ministero degli Affari Esteri

Consulate General of the United States

of America in Florence

Expo Milano 2015

Curated by

Jens M. Daehner

Kenneth Lapatin

Scholarly Advisory Committee

Stefano De Caro,

Rome, ICCROM

Sophie Descamps-Lequime,

Paris, Musée du Louvre

Christopher Hallett,

University of California, Berkeley

Seán Hemingway,

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

George Kakavas,

Athens, National Archaeological

Museum

Anna-Vasiliki Karapanagiotou,

Tripoli, 39th Ephorate of Prehistoric

and Classical Antiquities

Eugenio La Rocca,

Rome, Università di Roma 1

“La Sapienza”

Carol C. Mattusch,

Fairfax, George Mason University

R. R. R. Smith,

University of Oxford

Andrew Stewart,

University of California, Berkeley

Scientific and Conservation Committee

Alessandra Giumlia-Mair,

Merano, AGM Archeoanalisi

Luigia Melillo,

Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale

Benoît Mille,

Paris, C2RMF

Jerry Podany,

Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum

Salvatore Siano,

Florence, Consiglio Nazionale

delle Ricerche

Realized by

Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi

Scholarly and editorial coordination

and accompanying texts in the

exhibition

Ludovica Sebregondi

Installation design

Luigi Cupellini

with the collaboration of

Carlo Pellegrini

Exhibition installation

Galli Allestimenti

Atlas e Livelux Light Designers

Stampa in Stampa

Exhibition graphics

and communication design

RovaiWeber design

Translation of accompanying texts

in the exhibition

Stephen Tobin (Italian–English)

Xue Cheng (Italian–Chinese)

The Mystery of the Missing Statue

Education Department,

Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi

Communication and promotion

Susanna Holm

Sigma CSC

Press office

Antonella Fiori (national press)

Rosanna Wollenberg

Brunswick Arts (international press)

Photographer

James O’Mara

Website

Vertical Media

Technology coordinator

Matteo Lotti Margotti

Educational activities

Education Department,

Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi

Tours for individual visitors

and groups

Sigma CSC

Exhibition reservation office

Sigma CSC

Exhibition and ticket office staff

TML Service

Multichannel ticket office

TicketOne

Audioguide

START

Insurance

AON Artscope

Transport and installation

Arterìa

Head of security

Ulderigo Frusi

Head of prevention

and protection service

Andrea Bonciani

Electrical system service

Bagnoli S.r.l.

Alarm system service

Professional Security S.r.l.

Air-conditioning/heating system service

Soc. E. Palchetti & C. S.r.l.

Cleaning services

B&B di Benevieri e Bonciani

Plants and floral decorations

Giardino Torrigiani

Promoted and organised by

with the collaboration of

With the support of

With the contribution of

Technical sponsors

ESSAYS

Reframing Hellenistic Bronze Sculpture

Jens M. Daehner and Kenneth Lapatin

Why Bronze?

Andrew Stewart

Aletheia/Veritas: The New Canon

Gianfranco Adornato

Contexts of Discovery

Seán Hemingway

Hellenistic Bronze Sculptures from the Aegean Sea:

Recent Discoveries (1994–2009)

George Koutsouflakis and Angeliki Simosi

Bronze Sculpture

in the Hellenistic East

Matthew P. Canepa

Eikon chalke: Hellenistic Statue

Honors in Bronze

R. R. R. Smith

Repeated Images:

Beauty with Economy

Carol C. Mattusch

Looking Back: Archaic

and Classical Bronzes of the

Hellenistic and Roman Periods

Christopher H. Hallett

The Color of Bronze

Polychromy and the Aesthetics

of Bronze Surfaces

Sophie Descamps-Lequime

Techno-Chronology?

Alloy Composition and the Use

of Technical Features for the Dating

of Ancient Bronzes

Alessandra Giumlia-Mair

CATALOG

I. Formulas of Power:

The Image of the Ruler

II. Flesh and Bronze:

Bodies Ideal and Extreme

III. The New Realism of the Divine

IV. When Pathos Became Form:

Likeness and Expression

V. Apoxyomenos

and the Art of Replication

VI. Editions of the Past:

Retrospective Styles

APPENDIx

Alloy Compositions of Select Bronze Sculptures

Prepared by Jeffrey Maish

Bibliography

Authors

Index of Names, Places, and Subjects

Illustration Credits

20

34

48

60

72

82

94

110

126

150

166

184

208

226

242

270

286

311

324

357

358

358

83

Bronze Sculpture

in the

helleniStic eaSt

Matthew p. canepa

As Alexander the Great lay dying in Babylon in 323 BC a vast new

Hellenistic world extending from the Balkans to the Punjab was only

beginning to come to life. Like the koiné Greek language or Hellenistic

coinage tradition, Greek naturalistic modes of representation and ico-

nographies served as prestigious means of display and communica-

tion within and beyond the lands of Alexander’s former empire.1 This

essay examines the development of bronze sculpture in the great Hel-

lenistic and Iranian empires of Western, Central and South Asia focus-

ing particularly on the Seleukids (312–64 BC), and the Greco-Macedo-

nian and Iranian dynasties that emerged from its decline, such as the

Greek dynasties of Bactria and India (c. 246–10 BC) and the Arsakid

dynasty of Iran (c. 247 BC–AD 224). It also considers regions, such as

the Arabian Peninsula, which were not incorporated into the empires

of Alexander, the Seleukids, or Arsakids, but whose elites and artists,

nevertheless, engaged Hellenistic artistic currents.

Compared to the wealth of Mediterranean material, our corpus of

surviving large bronze sculpture from Hellenistic Asia is small and

fragmentary. The objects that do survive, however, are of a scale and

quality that make it clear that bronze sculpture certainly flourished

and was held in high esteem. Along with sculptures in other media,

a more abundant body of hollow- and solid-cast bronze statuettes

provides material to augment our understanding of the role bronze

sculpture and Hellenistic art played in the larger artistic, political,

and religious dynamics of Asia. Taken altogether, these bronzes tell

a vivid and complex story of transfer, adaptation, and transforma-

tion in the technologies, styles, and iconographies of Hellenistic and

Asian art.2

Visual and Technological Cross currents

As in the old Greek world, bronze enjoyed a special status in Hel-

lenistic Asia both because of its ability to take on a bright finish as

well as its associations with prestigious cultic and royal contexts.3

Bronze was certainly not unknown to the lands of the former Ach-

aemenid Empire.4 Mesopotamia, the Iranian Plateau, Arabian Penin-

sula, India, and, for that matter, Egypt, all had millennia-long tradi-

tions of metal and more specifically, bronze working.5 Neither the

artistic phenomenon of monumental bronze statuary nor the tech-

nology of lost-wax casting were foreign to these regions. What was

new, however, was the rise of the new Greco-Macedonian modes of

representation to a widespread elite status.

6.1

Weary Herakles found in Seleukeia-on-

the-Tigris (also known as the “Herakles

of Mesene”), late second century

BC–first century AD. Bronze, h 85.5 cm.

Baghdad, National Museum of Iraq,

inv. no. 100178 (cf. cat. 16).

84

Bronze sculpture offers several important perspectives on how

objects, ideas, and people all drove artistic exchange between the

Hellenistic East and West. While the evidence available to us is not

comprehensive, the metrology and techniques of Hellenistic Western

Asian bronze statuary indicates they arose through a variety of devel-

opmental pathways. In the late Hellenistic period, sculptors adopted

bronze mixed with lead, as it was much easier to work, cheaper

than tin, and more durable than purer alloys.6 The alloy compositions

and sculptural forms of some objects found in Hellenistic Western and

South Asia indicate they were directly imported from the west. A

statuette of Ceres from Begram and a statuette of a woman from Jabal

al-awd, Yemen, were likely imported from the eastern Mediterranean

to these regions.7 Indeed, trade in luxury goods continued to bring

new artistic influences from the Hellenistic and Roman West. Found

among other imported luxury objects, plaster medallions discovered

in the treasury at Begram could have functioned as mold prototypes

for casting bronze medallions similar to the Medallion with a Bust of

Athena (cat. 22).8

The majority of bronze figurines excavated from Ai Khanum and

Begram as well as other chance finds from ancient Bactria and

Gandhara that have been analyzed reflect this late Hellenistic trend

in alloy composition. However, even while their iconographies grew

from western currents, their sculptural forms relate to stylistic trends

characteristic of a larger body of Greco-Bactrian and Parthian sculp-

ture in other media.9 This suggests that, in some cases, Hellenistic

visual culture and bronze-working technologies travelled together.

However, as Hellenistic art became increasingly popular, local work-

shops produced objects in the contemporary style using indigenous

techniques. For example, an indigenous tradition of metallurgy and

bronze casting flourished in South Arabia distinct from classical Med-

iterranean methods. Bronzes from South Arabia (Arabia Felix), such

as the Lion Riders from Tamna (cat. 26) employed Hellenistic sculp-

tural forms and iconographies, but not Greek casting techniques.10

Similarly, later Buddhist statuettes from Gandhara employed differ-

ent alloy compositions even as their sculptural style continued Hel-

lenistic form produced by the lost-wax casting method.11

Royal Portraits and Monumental Bronze Statuary

Monumental bronze sculpture was an elite medium that was par-

ticularly associated with royal power in Hellenistic Mesopotamia

and Iran. Bronze statues, either of gods or sovereigns, projected the

6.2

Head of a Hellenistic king

from Shami, Iran, second century BC.

Bronze, h 26.7 cm. Tehran, National

Museum of Iran, inv. no. 2087.

85

royal image and presence around the empire and into culturally and

religiously significant spaces. It is worth noting that all surviving

large bronze statuary from Mesopotamia and Iran of the Seleukid

and Arsakid dynasties comes directly or indirectly from royal con-

texts. Located in the mountains of southwestern Iran in ancient Ely-

mais, the provincial sanctuary of Shami preserved the majority of

surviving bronze royal portraits from both the Seleukid and Arsakid

periods.12 Excavated by Aurel Stein, Shami yielded numerous bronze

and marble sculpture fragments as well as seven statue bases. The

fragments suggested that the sanctuary featured about twenty stat-

ues at the time of its destruction, of which three were marble and

the majority were bronze.13 While Stein recovered a marble head of

Aphrodite, the majority of the surviving heads belonged to statues

of royal personages portrayed according to both Hellenistic and Par-

thian conventions. Stein discovered other cultic paraphernalia at

the site including a small stone altar, bronze incense burners, and

a lion-clawed leg of a table or throne, as well as bronze statuettes.14

The exact significance of the sanctuary aside, it clearly served some

sort of cultic activity associated with statues of kings and, given the

proximity of many graves, perhaps ancestors.15

The two most important hollow-cast bronze statues from Shami

are the multi-fragment remains of a diademed king represented in

Hellenistic style and a large standing ruler portrayed with the hair-

style, royal clothing, and type of diadem of several Arsakid kings.

Although Stein identified the portrait fragments (fig. 6.2) as Antio-

chos IV Epiphanes, the head’s slightly hooked nose, flared nostrils,

sharp chin, and fleshy jowls and neck do not match the Apollo-like

coin portraits of this ruler. Rather, its features evoke the numismatic

images of several late Seleukid monarchs, including those of Deme-

trios I Soter (r. 162–150 BC), the first reign of Demetrios II Nikator (r.

146–138 BC) and Antiochos VII Sidetes (r. 138–129 BC), though it is also

possible that it represents one of the early kings of Elymais. A part

of a thigh and a colossal hand originally holding a spear or scepter

likely belonged to the statue as well, evoking a type not dissimilar

from the Terme Ruler (see fig. 7.1).

Literary and epigraphic evidence suggests that bronze statues of

Hellenistic rulers dominated prestigious urban and sacred contexts

across Mesopotamia and Iran. Antiochos I erected numerous monu-

mental statues of his father Seleukos I in the metropoleis of the

empire.16 Famously bearing horns, these portraits integrated Baby-

lonian images of royal and divine power with the Seleukid dynas-

tic myths. Antiochos III’s prostagma of 193 BC, which introduced

the official cult of the queen alongside the cult of the king and an-

cestors, specifically mentions royal images.17 The decree survived

on stelae associated with two sites in Iran, the city of Laodikeia-

in-Media and a fortress in the region of Kermanshah. No bronze

royal portraits from Hellenistic Bactria are preserved; nevertheless,

the Head of a Man with Kausia from Kalymnos (cat. 5) would not

have been out of place there. The Greco-Bactrian kings were the

only Hellenistic rulers to wear the kausia in their numismatic por-

traits and seals.18 Much like their counterparts in the Hellenistic

and Roman Mediterranean, elites in the Hellenistic East appreci-

ated objects that celebrated Alexander’s royal image and legacy.

Alexander’s image appears in several media including bronze. Like

the statuette of Alexander on Horseback from Herculaneum (cat.

2), a cuirassed rider from the palace at Begram (fig. 6.3) evokes Ly-

sippos’ portrayal of Alexander in the famous Granikos Monument.

The Begram statuette presents a creative departure from the monu-

ment, but nevertheless participates in the same wider sculptural

tradition as the Roman object.

Standing 1.94 meters, a frontally posed male figure in Parthian

dress, the so-called Shami Ruler, is the largest and finest hollow-cast

bronze statue to survive from ancient Iran (fig. 6.4).19 The sculpture

was rendered in a characteristically frontal, stylized sculptural style

that mirrors changes in the Arsakid royal image after Phraates III

(r. 70–57 BC) and reflects a newly emerging and greatly influential

Parthian visual culture.20 Originally, the figure was raising its right

hand (now missing) in a gesture of greeting or veneration common

in Parthian iconography. The ruler represents a royal personage and

wears a multi-banded diadem and a torque, two symbols of king-

ship common in later Arsakid numismatic portraits.

The Shami Ruler is particularly important as it demonstrates that

workshops in the Arsakid Empire retained a high level of techni-

cal and sculptural ability and this was deliberately adapted to the

new royal image. Clay sculptures discovered in the early Arsakid

capital of Nisa were the work of a highly trained Hellenistic sculp-

tural school and reflect the court’s appropriation of Hellenistic visual

traditions after Mithridates I’s conquest of Seleukeia-on-the-Tigris.21

Given the fact that a clay prototype is the first step in creating a

bronze sculpture, it is quite possible that such a school produced

bronze portraits with these naturalistic sculptural forms even earlier

in the history of the Arsakid Empire.

86

6.3

Rider from the palace at Begram,

Afghanistan, first century AD. Bronze, h

13.5 cm. Kabul, National Museum

of Afghanistan, inv. no. 04.1.84.

6.4

Ruler wearing Arsakid royal costume

from Shami, Iran (Shami Ruler), first

century BC–first century AD. Bronze,

h 190 cm. Tehran, National Museum

of Iran, inv. no. 2401.

The bronzes discovered at Shami were cast by highly skilled

sculptors who were likely based at nearby Susa, which had been

re-founded as a Seleukid colony, or at Seleukeia-on-the-Tigris. Susa

in particular preserves other evidence of large bronze portraits. Re-

named Phraata ta en Sousois under the Arsakids, it was a place

where Hellenistic cultural and civic traditions flourished.22 Here, like

in Seleukeia-on-the-Tigris, culturally (though not necessarily ethni-

cally) Greek citizens adapted these traditions to negotiate the city

elite’s changing relationship to the Arsakid court and its officials.23

An inscription makes specific reference to a “bronze statue” (eikona

chalkeian) that the city set up to honor the Parthian satrap Zamasp

(r. AD 2–3) indicating such statues were not reserved only for kings.24

Cult Images and Dedications

Bronze statues, both large and small, served in religious contexts

in the Hellenistic East, either as cult images or dedications. Bronze

fragments from Seleukeia-on-the-Tigris have been interpreted as be-

longing to “acrometallic” cult statues, whose exposed flesh and ex-

tremities were fashioned from bronze but set on an armature made

of less costly material like brick and clay similar to the acrolithic cult

statue from the Temple with Niches at Ai Khanum.25

The Weary Herakles from Seleukeia-on-the-Tigris is, to date, the

only large hollow-cast statue found in Mesopotamia that employs

a purely Hellenistic style (fig. 6.1). It entered the collections of the

Iraq Museum in the spring of 1984 after it was discovered by chance

in the expanse of the former Seleukid and Arsakid capital.26 At 85.5

cm, the statue is not colossal. Its sculptural forms, however, are truly

monumental and the techniques by which it was forged were usu-

ally reserved for large bronzes. Its head, torso, arms, legs, and details

such as the lion skin and index finger were cast as multiple pieces.

These were later joined through flow welds with excess bronze still

87

88

6.5

Statuette of Herakles from Babylonia,

second century BC - second century AD.

Terra cotta, h 15 cm. Paris, Musée

du Louvre, inv. no. AO 25926.

noticeable in places, such as inside the neck. While artisans routinely

inlaid the eyes of Hellenistic bronzes with glass, bone or stone, the

Seleukeia Herakles is among a small group of statues surviving with

ivory inlay for the whites of the eyes, a material and technique that

was not uncommon in ancient Near Eastern statuary.27 The hero origi-

nally leaned with his armpit upon a club draped with a lion skin, a

small portion of which can still be seen at the figure’s left armpit. The

figure’s right arm is bent and held at its hip and it stands in exagger-

ated contrapposto with its left leg bent and the majority of its weight

directed towards the right leg.

This pose corresponds to a number of variations of the Weary

Herakles (or Farnese Herakles) type of Lysippos where Herakles

rests upon his lion-skin-covered club, yet holds his hand on his hip

instead of enclosing the apples of the Hesperides behind his back.

Variations appear across the late Hellenistic and Roman world with

correspondences readily found in objects originating from the west

including examples in the Villa Albani, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek,

and the Herakles statuette from Sulmona (cat. 16).28 However, these

variations are equally ubiquitous in stone, terracotta, and metal

statuettes found in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, which

depart from the famous prototype in different ways (figs. 6.5 and

6.6).29 Like these eastern variations, the bronze Herakles from Se-

leukeia-on-the-Tigris holds his head level, gazing towards the hori-

zon, instead of inclining it towards the ground. Appearing on Se-

leukid, Greco-Bactrian, Indo-Greek, and Arsakid royal coinage and

the only Seleukid rock relief in Iran, Herakles was an immensely

popular deity in the lands of the former Seleukid Empire. His ico-

nography was adopted by a wide range of divinities including Ner-

gal in Mesopotamia, Verethragna in Iran, and Vajrapani in South

Asia.30 In other words, neither the hero nor the statue’s specific

iconography and typological variation can be considered foreign to

Hellenistic Iran and Mesopotamia.

89

6.6

Statuette of Herakles from Nigrai,

Peshawar Valley, Pakistan, second–first

century BC. Bronze, h 19 cm.

London, British Museum,

inv. no. OA 1892,1104.61.

90

The alloy composition of the Seleukeia Herakles (Cu 93.32%, Sn

6.8, Ag <1%) differs from that of most other Hellenistic bronzes in that

it does not contain lead but does contain a small amount of silver.

While it was harder to work, pure bronze produced a brighter fin-

ish. In this it corresponds to other prestigious late Hellenistic bronze

sculptures, such as the Horse and Jockey from Artemision (see figs.

4.7 and 7.7), that were also produced without lead. The presence of

silver sets it apart from most Mediterranean bronzes.31

The Seleukeia Herakles bears a bilingual inscription in Greek and

Parthian on its upper thighs.32 While the statue was not discovered in

an archaeological excavation, its inscriptions shed light on its patron-

age and tell an intriguing story of its later reception. The inscriptions

proclaim that the Arsakid king of kings Vologases IV (AD 147–91) took

the statue as a spoil of war around AD 150/151 after putting down

a rebellion by an Arsakid pretender, Mithridates, who had seized

Mesene. Vologases IV displayed the statue at the “Temple of Apollo

by the Bronze Gate” in Seleukeia-on-the-Tigris, called the “Temple

of Tir” in the Parthian version. Similarly, the Greek version identi-

fies the statue as Herakles, while the Parthian identifies it as the

Iranian god Verethragna. Given its origins, the bronze sculpture was

likely cast in its original home, Mesene, for a member of the dynasty

of Charakene (c. 125 BC–AD 117). The Hyspaosinids were Hellenized

Iranians from Bactria who ruled first as eparchs under the Seleukids

and later as independent kings.33 Herakles was the tutelary deity of

the dynasty, and the suggestion that the bronze could have originally

served as a cult statue is quite plausible.34

Large bronze cult statuary appears in literary descriptions of

the royal and aristocratic dynastic sanctuaries of Orontid (around

350–189 BC), Artaxiad (189 BC–AD 12), and Arsakid Armenia. The

dynastic sanctuaries of the Armenian kings housed statues of the

king, the king’s ancestors, and the gods.35 A bronze head and hand

of Aphrodite found in ancient Satala (cat. 23), which was within the

6.7

Statuette of Herakles from Ai Khanum,

Afghanistan, 150 BC.

Bronze, h 8.2 cm. Kabul, National

Museum of Afghanistan, inv. no. 04.42.8.

91

6.8

Seated Buddha from Gandhara, first–

mid second century AD. Bronze,

h 16.8 cm. New York, The Metropolitan

Museum of Art, inv. no. 2003.593.1. Gift

of Muneichi Nitta, 2003.

92

Orontid and Artaxiad kingdoms of Armenia, likely served in such

a sanctuary as the cult image of the Armenian goddess Anahit.36

Although Medieval, the main literary source for this period, Movses

Khorenats’i, specifically mentions that several gilt bronze statues of

Hellenistic workmanship, some brought as spoils of war, served as

cult images in these open-air sanctuaries.37 The Medieval historical

tradition of Caucasian Iberia (in modern-day Georgia) also preserves

memory of a gleaming, colossal statue of the main god of the Geor-

gian pantheon that stood at the tomb of its king, P‘arnavaz.38

On a smaller scale, bronze statuettes appear with reliable fre-

quency among the finds of cities and sanctuaries in the Hellenistic

East, including the temple at Laodikeia-in-Media, the palace at Be-

gram, and the Temple with Niches at Ai Khanum (fig. 6.7).39 Her-

akles was particularly popular, though hybrid Egyptian gods such

as Serapis-Herakles, Harpokrates, and Isis-Tyche were also promi-

nent.40 Consonant with Hellenistic practices in the west, a number

were cast of leaded bronze, though many also had concentrations

of zinc, which was not normally used in Classical and Hellenistic

sculptures.41 Their alloy compositions and stylistic elements, which

reflect emerging Greco-Bactrian styles, indicate that most were the

work of craftsmen producing objects locally for patrons nearby.42

Similarly, a small solid-cast bronze Marsyas playing the aulos was

found among dedications at the temple to the River Oxos, at Takht-e

Sangin, present-day Tajikistan.43 Its Greco-Bactrian sculptural forms

parallel objects from Ai Khanum, such as the statuette of Herakles

from the Temple with Niches.44 Although its iconography is Greek,

the associated Greek dedicatory inscription on its stone base indi-

cates that its patron had an Iranian name.

Indigenous Techniques, Contemporary Styles, New Contexts

During this era new influences came not just from the west, but

also from the east. In addition to regularly appearing in Scythian

burials across Central Asia, bronze mirrors from Han China (206 BC–

AD 220) are among finds from Seleukeia-on-the-Tigris and Begram.45

In addition to imports from the Mediterranean, Indian bronzes were

discovered in South Arabia. Marking deeper cultural integration,

molds from a bronze foundry found in the temenos of the Oxos Tem-

ple at Takht-e Sangin indicate Bactrian metal workers applied their

craft to vessels characteristic of the Saka and Yuezhi invaders who

swept through the region c. 140–130 BC.46 The vessel was a type of

cauldron normally found in Saka-Sarmatian graves whose shape ul-

timately derived from Chinese forms of the late-Zhou period (476–221

BC).47 The metal composition of the cauldron also matches a group of

Saka-Sarmatian cauldrons, which contain both tin and lead, though

the inscription dedicating it to the river god Oxos and the names of

the patrons are Greek.

Bronze sculpture of the Hellenistic East had a deep and important

impact on the later development of the arts of Central Asia and Chi-

na. The Greco-Bactrian sculptural tradition became a vehicle for the

Buddhist religion in eastern Iran and the Gandharan region of north-

ern India. These regions are best known for the extensive remains

of relief sculpture in schist or stucco that decorated monasteries, al-

though a number of small votive lost-wax bronze sculptures survive

as well. A statuette of a seated Buddha from Gandhara now in the

Metropolitan Museum provides a particularly fine example of bronze

statuary created with the naturalistic renderings of the human form

and drapery characteristic of this new Greco-Buddhist tradition of

sculpture (fig. 6.8).48 Beginning in the third century AD, Buddhist

communities from Gandhara and Bactria became the main drivers of

missionary activity in Central Asia and China. Buddhist missionar-

ies and travellers from these regions brought such bronze statuettes

with them to China as well as the lost-wax technique. These objects

provided the first prototypes for ritual images created by Chinese

craftsmen, who first cast the figurines using the traditional piece-

mold method before fully adopting the lost-wax method as well by

the mid-seventh century.49

93

27 al-Salihi 1987, 160; Invernizzi 1989, 68; Layard discovered a small head of Herakles

with ivory inlay eyes at Nineveh: Layard 1853, 592.

28 Rome, Villa Albani, inv. no. 741; Bol 1994, 187-92, no. 453, pls. 109-11 (A. Linfert); Co-

penhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, inv. no. 251; Moltesen 2002, 227-9, no. 68; Moreno

1982; Invernizzi 1989, 94–6.

29 See the figurines of Herakles from Babylonia (Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 25926),

Afghanistan (London, British Museum, inv. no. OA 1892.11-4.61). Invernizzi 1989, 87–91.

See also Errington and Cribb 1992, nos. 102 and 104. For Vajrapani, see Flood 1989;

Hsing 2005; Halkias 2013. For Herakles-Nergal at Palmyra and Hatra, see Kaizer 2000.

30 Errington and Curtis 2007, 107–14; Invernizzi 2005.

31 Craddock 1977; al-Salihi 1987, 159; Hemingway 2004, 152–3.

32 Thommen 2010, 461–2; Weber 2010, 569–71.

33 Gregoratti 2011.

34 Invernizzi 1989, 99.

35 Canepa, forthcoming.

36 Mitford 1974.

37 Movses Khorenats’i, 2.12, trans. Thomson 2006, 146.

38 The History of the Kings of K‘art‘li, trans. Robert W. Thomson 1996, 36–8.

39 Errington and Cribb 1992, nos. 102–14. Hiebert and Cambon 2008, nos. 14, 225-27.

40 Mairs 2007.

41 Errington and Cribb 1992, 248.

42 Errington and Cribb 1992, nos. 102–12.

43 Bernard 1987.

44 Kabul, National Museum of Afghanistan, inv. no. 04.42.8; Hiebert and Cambon 2008,

no. 14.

45 e.g., Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, inv. no.

18162: Werning 2009.

46 Rapin 2007.

47 Boroffka and Mei 2013; Ivantchik 2013.

48 Kim 2011.

49 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 2003.593.1.; Strahan 2012.

Notes

1 Alram 2009; Cribb 2007; Invernizzi 2007.

2 On these problems, see Canepa 2010.

3 Neer 2010, 77.

4 Pigott 1999; Pigott 2012; Craddock 2012.

5 Potts 2012.

6 Craddock 1977; Haynes 1992; see also Giumlia in this volume.

7 Errington and Cribb 1992, 107, no. 110; Mille 2012, 233.

8 Hiebert and Cambon 2008, nos. 183–90.

9 Errington and Cribb, 248; Pappalardo 2010; Invernizzi 1999.

10 Mille 2012, 232. See the entry for cat. 26.

11 Errington and Cribb 1992, 246-7.

12 Stein 1938, 324-6; Stein 1940, 130–4 and 141–59; Godard 1937; Schippmann 1971, 227–

33; Smith 1988, 101. For the larger historical and archaeological context, see Potts 1999,

354–410.

13 Stein 1938, 325; Stein 1940, 147–8 and 155.

14 Stein 1938, 325–6. Stein 1940, 153–4.

15 Sherwin-White 1984. For the wider context of the Arsakid ruler cult, see Dąbrowa

2011 and Canepa, forthcoming.

16 Messina 2004.

17 Robert 1949; Robert 1950; Robert 1967, 285. For the wider context of Antiochos III’s

cult reform, see Debord 2003 and Van Nuffelen 2004.

18 Palagia 2012, 379. Though, on the Villa Albani “Euthydemos,” see Smith 1988, ap-

pendix IV and Stančo 2007.

19 Kawami 1987, 59–63, 167–71; Curtis 1993.

20 For Hellenistic and Parthian metalwork in the Getty collections reflecting these de-

velopments, see Pfrommer 1993.

21 Invernizzi and Lippolis 2008, 167–96; Invernizzi 1994; Invernizzi 2005.

22 Messina 2007; Messina 2011; Mairs 2008; Mairs 2013; Rougemont 2012b.

23 Gregoratti 2012; Potts 1999, 392–7.

24 Rougemont 2012a, 50–6, no. 12.

25 Colledge 1977, 82; Pigott 1989.

26 al-Salihi 1987; Invernizzi 1989; Bernard 1990.

240

26

TWO STATUES OF EROTES RIDING LIONS

First century BC–first century AD

Bronze

H 61 cm; W 52.5 cm

Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution,

Freer Sackler Gallery, inv. nos. LTS1992.6.87,

LTS1992.6.88

Inscribed in Qatabanic script on the face of

each base: “Thuwayb and ’Akrab dhu

Muhasni’ have placed [these sculptures] at

Yafash’. Thuwayb and ‘Aqrab of the

Muhasni’ family decorated the house called

Yafash’” (trans. adapted from Glanzman

2002b)

Excavated in 1952 at Tamna‘, Yemen,

in the House of Yafash (Yfa2); American

Foundation for the Study of Man,

Washington, DC; donated to the Freer

Sackler Gallery in 2013

The Lion Riders were discovered in Yemen

within the walls of the ancient city of Tamna‘,

the capital of the Kingdom of Qataban. Buried

under thick layers of ash, they were deposited

about one meter apart when the door or wall

they decorated collapsed in a fire associated

with the city’s violent destruction in the early

first century AD. The sculptures were cast

from different molds and display several

variations. Each of the Erotes originally held

a chain that encircled the lions’ necks in one

hand and a kentron or thyrsos in the other.

The rider discovered near the eastern corner

of the building portrays Eros laughing, while

the other rider, found to the west, has a

more serious expression and rides a fantastic

maned lioness.

Images of Erotes riding wild cats belong

to a wider Hellenistic Dionysian repertoire

and appear frequently in Roman fresco

and mosaic decoration, as well as luxury

vessels, jewelry, and even provincial coinage.

Earlier interpreters posited that all objects

executed in such a highly accomplished

Hellenistic sculptural style were cast in the

Mediterranean and imported. Indeed, a

bronze panther discovered in a shipwreck

off the south of France could provide a close

comparandum with similar dimensions and

a hole in its back for a rider (Segall 1955,

211, no. 20). However, closer study of the

Lion Riders reveals they were cast locally.

They display telltale marks of indigenous

South Arabian techniques of indirect lost-wax

casting that developed from ancient Near

Eastern precedents independently from the

Greek tradition (Mille 2012).

South Arabian bronzes have incredibly thin

walls and, for structural support, retain an

internal clay core normally removed in Greco-

Roman production. Unlike the Mediterranean

region, South Arabia used leaded bronze for

statues throughout its history (Mille 2012,

228–36). In addition, South Arabian foundries

employed different methods of flow or fusion

welding characterized by distinctive weld join

geometry and complex pre-join preparations.

Cast separately, the bases on which the lions

stand carry identical dedicatory inscriptions

in Qatabanic script (Jamme 1958, 189–90, pls.

97–108; Avanzini 2008, 629, figs. 9–10). These

inscriptions were cast using a “wax-thread

molding” technique: an artisan applied

and shaped wax thread on the base’s wax

model, forming each letter individually (cf.

Chiavari 2011). Objects produced with the

same techniques as the Riders but in a South

Arabian style were discovered in the same

area and share a similar date (Mille 2012,

228).

It is possible that a local foundry cast the

Lion Riders from imported molds, although

artists from the Greco-Roman world could

have travelled and worked in South Arabia.

Fragments of two large bronzes discovered

near Sanaa, Yemen, could conceivably

document either phenomenon. Dating to

the late third or fourth century AD, these

241

statues portray the Himyarite king Dhamar‘ali

Yuhabirr and his son Tha’ran Yuhan‘im

in heroic nudity in a pose that evokes a

Lisyppan typology. On the statue of Tha’ran

one knee bears an inscription in Greek stating

that the sculptor “Phokas made it,” while

the other knee bears an inscription in South

Arabian script stating that the local craftsman

“Lahay’amm assembled it” (Weidemann

1983; Glanzman 2002a; Schulz and Foster

2008, 38). South Arabian bronze production,

and the Lion Riders in particular, provide an

intriguing example of the interplay between

technique and visual culture, illustrating

how iconographies and sculptural forms

could travel independently from production

techniques and take on new lives in new

cultural contexts.

Matthew P. Canepa

Bibliography

Segall 1955, 210–2, pls. 56–7, figs. 1–3; Jamme

1958; Segall 1958; Ternbach 1958; Simpson

2002, 127-9; ‘Ali ‘Aqil and Antonini 2007, 233;

Avanzini 2008, 629, figs. 9–10; Mille 2012,

228–9, fig. 5.