AN ELAMITE SILVER FLASK AMULET, CIRCA 1200 B.C.

拍品描述

AN ELAMITE SILVER FLASK AMULET, CIRCA 1200 B.C. Of pear-form, rising from a small disc foot to a swelling ovoid body that tapers to a short cylindrical neck surmounted by a flaring, collared mouth with a small loop suspension at the rim. The lower body is worked in repoussé with a tier of upright pointed petals or sepals enclosing the base, above which a second register of larger lanceolate leaves rises along the shoulders. The silver retains a dense grey patina with areas of cuprite-coloured accretion, calcareous deposit, and horn-silver corrosion, particularly across the upper body and around the neck, where the metal has split along an old seam. The diminutive scale, the integral suspension loop, and the sealed form indicate that the object was carried on the person rather than set down. The vegetal scheme reads as a stylised bud or flower, the lower petals folded closed and the upper leaves opening toward the neck. This is the visual language of the lotus and the date-palm flower that runs through the decorative arts of the second-millennium Near East, where the bud, sealed at the base and unfolding above, served as a sign of regeneration and abundance. The form of the vessel itself, a small sealed flask suspended from a loop, belongs to the class of personal containers used to hold scented oils, kohl, or unguents, substances whose protective and ritual associations are well attested in Elamite and broader Mesopotamian practice. The combination of contents and iconography would have given the object the character of an amulet as much as a cosmetic container. Silver in Elam carried particular weight. The Elamite economy of the later second millennium operated on silver as a standard of value, and worked silver vessels were a marker of elite and temple consumption, drawn from sources in the Iranian plateau and traded across the Susiana plain. The repoussé technique seen here, in which the form is raised from a single sheet and the petals pushed out from within before finishing from the exterior, is consistent with the metalworking traditions of Susa and the wider Middle Elamite koine of the Shutrukid period, when silver and gold votive and personal objects were produced in some quantity for deposition and for use by the court and priesthood. This flask exemplifies the small-scale luxury metalwork of Middle Elamite Iran, where a personal object combined cosmetic function, vegetal symbolism, and the inherent value of silver into a single amuletic form. Survivals of this type in silver are uncommon, the metal having more often been melted or lost to corrosion, and the preservation here of the full profile with its suspension loop and decorative registers intact gives a clear sense of a class of object normally known only in fragments. Height: 8.5cm

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