The royal gold of Marlik Tepe….
Beneath the mound of Marlik, in northern Iran, a king has guarded his treasure, and his secrets, for over three thousand years. From what was apparently a royal cemetery of a kingdom of the early first millenium B.C. , the remains of a previously unknown people have emerged. A rich gold trove of jewelry, cups, and vases in fine relief were unearthed, along with highly stylized bronze and pottery animal figurines. The greatest surprise to scholars was the sophistication of these objects, found so far to the east of Azerbaijan, where before there was no reason to believe that, at that time, a culture of such distinction existed.
—, early 1st millennium B.C.
Northwestern Iran, Capsian region
Gold; H. 2 9/16 in. (6.5 cm)
Rogers Fund, 1962 (62.84)
A number of cups similar to this one have been found in the excavation of the rich burials at Marlik, a site southwest of the Caspian Sea in northern Iran.
On the body of the cup, four gazelles, framed horizontally by guilloche bands, walk in procession to the left. Their bodies are rendered in repoussé and are detailed with finely chased lines to indicate hair and musculature. The projecting heads were made separately, as were the ears and horns, and were fastened invisibly in place by a colloid hard-soldering, a process much practiced in Iran involving glue and copper salt. The hooves and eyes are indented, probably to receive inlays.
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Marilk Tepe lies in the Gilan area of Iran betwen the Elburz mountain range and the southern shore of the Caspian sea. The mild climate and plentiful rainfall must have offered Marlik’s earliest dwellers a land of rich and inviting fertility.
Who were the Marlik people? Were they natives to the land, or one of the successive waves of Aryans who began to sweep down from Russia as early as the third millenium B.C.? What kind of society did they live in? Starting with this last question, archaeologists have constructed a picture of this puzzling complexity. Cooking and milking pots, ladles, razors, and tweezers suggest a peaceful domestic scene, yet short swords and daggers, a bow and over three thousand bronze arrowheads, some with double barbs, tell another less pastoral narrative. Were the inhabitants warriors or merely able to defend themselves against invaders?
—The grave goods, numbering over 25,000 individual items, constitute the largest collection discovered from any cemetery of the Early Iron Age anywhere in the Near East. The collection includes gold, silver, and bronze vessels of different shapes and sizes, from plain to highly decorated examples, mosaic glass and frit vessels, ceramic and metal figurines and statuettes of animals and humans, a wide range of personal ornaments and pottery vessels, stamp and cylinder seals, a wide assortment of tools and weaponry, as well as horse trappings and miscellaneous items . Thanks to a series of publications by Negahbān, as well as secondary publications including some in more popular venues, a series of stamps published in 1960s to commemorate the discovery, and the use of imagery from Mārlik finds on Iranian banknotes from 1960s and 1970s, Mārlik has come to occupy a prominent place in collective national patrimony of the Iranians.—Read More:http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/marlik
An unusual aspect of the Marlik mound is the fact that only one cultural mound is found there. From the site four types of tombs were found there, and in all of them the construction was fairly simple and straightforward; very much in contrast to the extraordinary gold, bronze and silver objects placed in them.
—Amlash culture, about 1400-900 BC
From north-west Iran
This silver beaker belongs to the so-called Amlash culture of Gilan province in north-west Iran. This was one of the most distinctive Iranian cultures of the late second and early first millennia BC. The beaker probably came from the region of Marlik Tepe. Here, in one of the richest cemeteries of the region, fifty three intact tombs were excavated in 1961-62. Vessels similar to this one were found there, and indeed gold and silver beakers with concave sides formed a prominent part of the material from the cemetery. The decoration on this beaker consists of horses flanking a stylized tree on the upper register, and winged lions attacking rams on the lower: both friezes are defined by herring-bone and guilloche.
The graves of Marlik Tepe provide evidence of a rich and flourishing culture that is essentially local in inspiration. —J.E. Curtis. Read More:http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/s/amlash_silver_beaker.aspx
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