Art of the Near East

Some of the oldest civilizations appeared in the Near East. You had the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, and so on. Along with the sheer number of cultures in the area, you also had civilizations rise, fall, and disappear. This type of fluidness and instability always interested me, since it adds a dynamic to the culture of the area that places like Egypt and Greece lack, and I'm also kind of a jerk that gets interested in how the wars of that time shaped history. Sociopathy aside, my interest soared when I started looking at some of the pieces that these cultures made. However, it wasn’t their ceramics or stonework, both impressive in scale and style, which interested me. It was this piece that caught my attention:

The “Striding Horned Demon” is an interesting piece, and it's not because of the fact he's effectively butt-naked. For one thing, this was not made in the Fertile Crescent of the Euphrates and Tigris, but in the Zagros Mountains of Persia, where the civilization of Elam would pop up eventually. He’s also a metal sculpture rather than a ceramic or stone figure, which is odd considering that most figures found at this time were stone or ceramic, and were absolutely terrifying.

We are become Terror, Destroyers of Minds

Now, the "Striding Horned Demon" is a contemporary style for this period, as the peoples who made this were metalworkers, but it is still different from things like the votive figures you usually see. He is also depicted with horns, which to most cultures in that area meant divinity or royalty of some sort, so this had to be an important item for this culture. He’s only about seven or so inches tall, so while he can't necessarily fit into your pocket, he is still pretty small.

Now, I love this piece for a variety of reasons. First off, I like the amount of effort that the sculptor put into this piece. This implies that the sculptor spent a long period of time etching and carving into a wax mold, since metal sculptures were all made by wax molding at the time. Second, I like the fluidity of his form; he’s not made stiff and blocky like most of the sculptures you see are; he has curves and muscling. His pose is still fairly stiff, but that sense of naturalism when it comes to the body is a breath of fresh air in my opinion. I also love the material that he was made from, because this guy is made out of arsenical bronze.

 

Well that doesn't sound pleasant

You see, there’s actually more than one type of bronze, and one of the oldest types was arsenical bronze. That’s because copper bonds very well to it and it’s commonly found with arsenic in it. Therefore, it made total sense for the people of the time to just use that. We eventually stopped using it because that stuff’s not only poisonous, but finicky; it takes a certain mix with arsenic to produce good bronze, while mixing copper and tin is simpler to do. Lastly, he as well as most other pieces at this time reminds me of the Dwarves from the Elder Scrolls series. In fact, this piece reminds me of this guy:

Oh darn it, now I want to play Skyrim again.