NARRATOR: Rhyta---horn-shaped drinking vessels like this one---combine the luxury of Persian silver craftsmanship with Greek decorative influences introduced under the Seleucid rulers. The protome, or front half, typically represented an animal, which could be real or mythological. This rhyton depicts a stag.

MATTHEW CANEPA: A rhyton is a vessel used to pour and aerate wine.

Matthew Canepa, Professor of Art History and Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Presidential Chair in Art History and Archaeology of Ancient Iran at University of California, Irvine.

MATTHEW CANEPA: It’s a very fancy serving vessel. The most elaborate examples from the Parthian period combined some sort of animal-shaped forepart with a long, curved horn. Wine was poured into the top, and it was held with one hand, usually the right hand, and it exited through the hole in the bottom. In order to hold them and use them properly, you also had to be acculturated into the manners and customs of the Parthian court.

NARRATOR: A single sheet of silver was hammered to shape the horn. The stag’s head, formed separately, was also made with that technique. The antlers and legs were cast with molten metal and attached separately. Decorative gilding was rubbed or burnished into the silver’s surface and heated to bond it to the vessel. Decorative elements on the horn reveal Greek influences.

MATTHEW CANEPA: With the exception of what’s on the rim---those little wave patterns---everything else is a derivation of some sort of plant. We have acanthus leaves at the lower part of the rim and then various  tendrils and flowering plants in the upper portion with sprigs of olive in the bands around the upper portion of the horn.