Cast

Relief

CBS Register: cast of terracotta relief, fragment, traces of Aramaic Inscription

PBS XVI: Persian hero piercing a lion with his dagger. He is fighting at close quarters, and is perhaps a new version of Gilgamesh and the wild animals, Marduk and Ashur with the dragon , or the kinds of Assyria as hero hunters. The massive lion and the kneeling hero nearly oppressed by the weight of the brute, form an effective group with great sculptural power. The style is Assyrian. The Aramaic inscription on the pedestal is not earlier than BC 700, contemporary with the beginning of the Persian influence in Babylonia. The hero has Aryan features, straight nose and forehead, pointed beard, hair in three rows of curls on the shoulders. His pointed cap probably made of lambskin, is decorated with tongue or leaf pattern like the lions’ mane. His short tunic reaches to the knees, and leaves the arms bare. A heavy fringe plays above the knees and round the arms. Two dagger sheaths are passed through the double coil of a belt with scalloped edges. One blade is still in its sheath. He has drawn the other to kill the lion. Head, mane and muscles of the lion have the conventional style of the Assyrian sculptures. molded relief. Cast of an original in Constantinople.