Votive Pin with Decorated Disc (800–600 BCE): Art, History and Details

Votive Pin with Decorated Disc (800–600 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

A complex mythological scene unfolds on the decorative disc of this silver pin. On the top register, two bearded figures carrying palm fronds and a bird extend a frond to a seated lion-headed man. Below, two figures holding fronds approach a man riding a bull. Two animal-headed beings flank the registers and perhaps hold banners in their hands. A pattern of stylized lotus buds and blossoms decorates the disk’s rim. The scene may represent a Mesopotamian or Iranian myth. The pin was made with the repoussé technique by hammering designs into the back.

Object facts

• Title: Votive Pin with Decorated Disc
• Date: 800–600 BCE
• Culture: Iran, Luristan
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: silver, repoussé and incised
• Dimensions: Overall: 35.1 x 15.9 x 1.7 cm (13 13/16 x 6 1/4 x 11/16 in.)
• Collection: Near Eastern Art
• Department: Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Accession number: 1963.257

A detail from the museum

Luristan votive pins were sometimes found pushed into the walls of religious sanctuaries.

Collection credit

James Parmelee Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Henning, Edward B. “Annual Report for 1963.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 51, no. 6 (June 1964): 127–161.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• Shepherd, Dorothy G. “Four Early Silver Objects from Iran.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 53, no. 2 (February 1966): 38–50.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.