Topic: material-culture (4)

• ObjectGold plaque of a barsom-bearer (Oxus Treasure)

  One of the small gold votive plaques of the Oxus Treasure showing a figure in Median dress holding a bundle of rods — the barsom of Iranian ritual; the clearest surviving material image of the rite the texts describe.

• PlaceNaqsh-e Rostam

  The cliff a few kilometres from Persepolis where the great Achaemenid kings were entombed; the tomb of Darius I carries the DNa and DNb inscriptions and a relief of the king at worship before the fire beneath the winged symbol — the fullest single image of Achaemenid royal religion.

• ConceptThe Sacred Fire

  Fire, the purest of the creations and the visible focus of Iranian worship, tended by the Magi in the open air at stone fire-holders; the enclosed fire-temple of later Zoroastrianism is a Sasanian development and an anachronism for the Achaemenid period.

• ArtworkThe Winged Symbol (the figure in the winged ring)

  The winged ring, often enclosing a robed male figure, that hovers above the king at Behistun, Persepolis and the royal tombs; the Achaemenid sign of divine sanction, whose precise identity — Ahura Mazdā, the royal glory, or a general emblem of god-given kingship — is genuinely unresolved.