LOT 0298

Luristan Bronze Horse Bit

9TH-8TH CENTURY B.C.

6 7/8 in. (543 grams, 17.5 cm).

The cheekpieces formed as winged deer with horns and small ears, a circular opening to the body for the bar to pass through, two loops and studs to the reverse; the bar with looped circular terminals.

Ex old English collection.
London art market, pre 2000.
Property of a Lonodon, UK, gentleman.

Cf. Haerink, E., Overlaet, B., 'Finds from Khatunban B – Badavar Valley (Luristan) in the Iran Bastan Museum' in Iranica Antiqua, January 2004, pp.105-168, pl.5, for a similar.

The most admirable horse bits ever created by man are undoubtedly those from Luristan, a province which extended along the valleys that make up the central part of the Zagros mountains. Worked in cast bronze with the lost wax process, they almost always had a rigid cannon in round or square bars which were flattened and rolled up around themselves at the ends, but their exceptional feature were the figural side bars. The local metalsmiths, in a period of time between 1200 and 700 B.C. managed to create an infinite number of typologies: horses, oxen, ibex, roosters and various mythological animals.