Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 8. (Budapest, 1965)
HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM — MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Ferenczy, László: A Saljuk bronze from Iran. A present from Sir Aurel Stein
finds excavated at Balalyk-Tepe in Uzbekistan of the 5—7th centuries. 39 We can assume that all these objects belonged to a fundamentally similar ritual. In 1959 a unique piece consisting of several parts was excavated at Piandjikent : it has three joining parts of bronze similar to the middle part of our piece, with iron pipes in between. On the top is a semispherical bronze cup of 13 cm in diameter, with a broad rim turning downward. The stand of the object was not found. According to Belenitsky it might have been a floating wick, but even this is not quite certain. He mentions a certain similarity between this object and the shapes of altars and incense-burners represented on the reverse side of Parthian coins.' 10 It does not seem improbable that the object presented by Aurel Stein represents a late type of such incense-burners with their original usage long forgotten. The slight bending downwards of the rim of the upper tray may indicate that it served to protect the hand from burning. Lacking exact analogies to the Stein bronze we cannot state for certain the place of its origin. But considering the sculptural animal figures of Khurasanian candlesticks and pitchers, the similar vase-shaped middle part found by Aurel Stein at Mujnabad, the East-Iranian tray, bearing a close likeness in ornamentation to our piece, in the possession of Stuart C. Welch, and the mentioned analogies from Uzbekistan, it looks most probable that our bronze was also made in East-Iran, in Khurasan. When estimating the age of the bronze we may take the following into account: its being made of bronze which, with the absence of inlay, indicates an early period of Islamic art in Iran, the 12— 13th centuries. The well-spaced, not overcrowded ornamentation of the bronze, the motifs used, as well as the Kufic and Naskhi inscriptions all have their analogies in the Iranian art of the Saljuk period. From such evidence we may date our bronze most probably to the second half of the 12th, or the beginning of the 13th century. When we consider its epigraphy we may state the following : altogether there were originally 29 fields with inscriptions on the three parts of the object, of which one has broken off. The Arabic inscriptions express the good wishes usual on Islamic works of art for the owner: al-'izz, al-'ikbal, al-yumn, al-madd, al-salama, al-sa'ada, al-baraka etc. li-sahibihi. Most frequent among them is: al-yumn (prosperity) and al-madd (abundance). A general analysis of the epigraphic details confirms the dating of the object on the ground of its shape and ornamentation. Similar inscriptions are mostly present on Islamic metal objects of the 12—13th centuries. The frequent occurance of the expressions al-yumn and al-madd, however, point especially to an East-Iranian origin and to the 12th century. The ,,good-wish" on Islamic works of art is most frequently al-baraka. Ceramics from Central Asia bear the expression al-yumn more often, replacing al-baraka completely in the 11th century. 41 This word was also spelled without mlm; at the end of the word, just for the sake of symmetry, we often find two stems which occur on our bronze as well. 89 AAböayM, H.H.: EaJiaJibiK-Tene. Tashkent, 1960. p. 70, 71. 40 Et'AenuqKuű, A,M.: O paooTe neHA>KHKeHTCKoro oTp^aa TaAwiiKCKou ApxeoJioniHecKOH SivcneaHUHH B 1959 r. ApxeojiormiecKHe paöoTbi B TaA>KHi<HCTaHe, No. VII, (1959), Dushanbe, 1961. p. 89 -90. 41 Flury, S.: The ornamental Kufic inscriptions on pottery, in A Survey of Persian Art, p. 1735.
