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Lot Essay
The applique roundel depicts Ahura Mazda, the bearded creator god of Zoroastrianism. He is depicted above a crescent moon, wearing voluminous robes and a crown, and holding a lotus flower in his left hand, while his right is raised. The roundel is ornamented with a fringe of lotus flowers radiating from a hatched band. Ahura Mazda appears frequently in Achaemenid art. For an example with him also holding a lotus and with the same hand gesture, see the impression of a chalcedony scaraboid from Lebanon, no. 5.32 in Boardman, Persia and the West. Similar images of the god above a crescent moon are found on an inlayed gold earring in Boston, no. 15 in Spier, Potts, and Cole, eds, Persia, Ancient Iran and the Classical World.
While the precise use for all of these objects is not known, extant rings on the reverses of the appliques suggest they were embedded into necklaces and bracelets or woven onto fabrics, either to ornament garments or decorate tents such as those captured by the Greeks at Plataea which Herodotus describes as being “adorned with gold and silver” (Herodoti Historiae ix, 80). The roundels similarly could have been embedded into garments, like the medallions seen on the robe worn by Xerxes in a relief at Persepolis, see Kantor, op. cit., p. 14, plate XI.
While the precise use for all of these objects is not known, extant rings on the reverses of the appliques suggest they were embedded into necklaces and bracelets or woven onto fabrics, either to ornament garments or decorate tents such as those captured by the Greeks at Plataea which Herodotus describes as being “adorned with gold and silver” (Herodoti Historiae ix, 80). The roundels similarly could have been embedded into garments, like the medallions seen on the robe worn by Xerxes in a relief at Persepolis, see Kantor, op. cit., p. 14, plate XI.