A History of the World in 100 Objects - Dr Neil MacGregor [111]
It is when you come to the animal that the king is riding on the silver dish that you get a shock. He is not on a horse but on a fully antlered stag. He straddles the beast without either stirrups or saddle, gripping it by the antlers with his left hand, while his right hand deftly plunges a sword right into its neck – blood sprays out, and at the bottom of the plate we see the same stag in the throes of death. This whole image is a fantasy, from the great crown at the top, which would quite clearly have fallen off if you’d been riding, to the idea of killing your own mount in full leap.
So what is really going on here? In the Middle East hunting scenes had been a common way of representing royal power for centuries. Assyrian kings, well protected in their chariots, are shown bravely killing lions, from a safe distance. Shapur is doing something else. This is the monarch in single combat with the beast, and he’s risking himself not out of pointless bravado but for the benefit of his subjects. As a protective ruler we see him killing certain kinds of animals, the beasts that threatened his subjects – big cats which preyed on cattle and poultry, wild boar and deer which ravaged crops and pastures. So images like this one are visual metaphors for royal power conceived in Zoroastrian terms. In killing the wild deer the hunter-king is imposing divine order on demonic chaos. Shapur, acting as agent for the supreme Zoroastrian god of goodness, will defeat the forces of primal evil and so fulfil his central role as king.
Guitty Azarpay, Professor of Asian Art at the University of California, Berkeley, highlights the dual role of the king:
It is both a secular image – because of course hunting was enjoyed by most people, by most nations and especially in Iran – and also an expression of the Zoroastrian ideology of the time. Man is God’s weapon against darkness and evil, and he serves the ultimate victory of the cre-ator by following the principle of right measure, leading a life that is prescribed as having good speech, good words and good actions. In this way, the pious Zoroastrian can hope for the best of existence in this life and the best paradise spiritually in the hereafter. The best king is one who as head of state and guardian of religion creates justice and order, is a supreme warrior and a heroic hunter.
This dish is quite clearly meant not just to be seen but to be shown off. It’s an ostentatiously expensive object made from a heavy single piece of silver, and the figures have been hammered out from the back in high relief. The various surface textures have been beautifully rendered by the craftsman, who has chosen different kinds of stippling for the flesh of the animal and the clothing of the king. And the key elements of the scene – the king’s crown and clothing, the heads, tails and hooves of the stags – are highlighted in gold. When this was displayed in the flickering candlelight of a banquet, the gold would have animated the scene and focused attention on the central conflict between the king and the beast. This is how Shapur wanted himself to be seen and his kingdom to be understood. Silver dishes like this one were used by the Sasanian kings in vast quantities, sent as diplomatic gifts across the whole of Asia.
As well as sending silver dishes with symbolic images Shapur also sent Zoroastrian missionaries. It was an identification of the faith with the state that was ultimately to prove very dangerous, especially after the Sasanian Dynasty was swept away and Iran was conquered by the armies of Islam. Tom Holland explains:
Zoroastrianism has really pinned its colours to the Sasanian mast. It has defined itself through the empire and through the monarchy. And so when those collapse, Zoroastrianism is really crippled. Although over