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Lot 12

Two rare large Sarmatian Plaques
Bactria, 4th-3rd Centuries BC
(2)

The Jacques Desenfans Collection
10 April 2008, 10:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

£12,000 - £18,000

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Two rare large Sarmatian Plaques
Bactria, 4th-3rd Centuries BC

of sheet gold covering an iron core, embellished with concentric bands of inset turquoise gems of different shapes, a trace of an iron attachment on the reverse of one
11.4 cm. diam. max(2)

Footnotes

Exhibited:
L’Art Iranien dans les Collections Belges, Musée du Cinquantenaire, Brussels, 10th November until 19th December 1971.
Exposition de L’Art ancien de L’Iran et son Rayonnement a Braine L’Alleud, Maison Communale, 31st August to 16th September 1973.

The Sarmatians were a nomadic people who were known mainly as horsemen and as hunters. They had emerged from Central Asia in the 6th Century and made their way westwards (eventually threatening the frontiers of the Roman Empire in Lower Moesia and Dacia in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries BC). As well as being famous horsemen they sacrificed horses to their god: hence the horse held an prominent place in their culture and iconography, and the plaques here would probably have been ornaments for horse trappings.

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