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Audio Guide
Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus
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Shaft-hole axe with a griffin-demon, boar, and winged dragon, late 3rd–early 2nd millennium B.C. Western Central Asia. Silver and gold foil; H. to top of griffin-demon heads: 10.8 cm (4 1/4 in.); L. 15 cm (5 7/8 in.); Weight 581 g; shaft hole: L. 5.1 cm (2 in.); W. 1.59 cm (5/8 in.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, and James N. Spear and Schimmel Foundation Inc. Gifts, 1982 (1982.5).
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Paul Collins
This silver-gilt shaft-hole axe is a masterpiece of three-dimensional and relief sculpture. It's expertly cast and partly covered with gold foil, to articulate a bird-headed hero grappling with a wild boar and a winged dragon. The human-bodied hero is depicted twice—once on each side of the axe—and so he appears to have two heads. Professor Carl Lamberg-Karlovsky:
Carl Lamberg-Karlovsky
This comes from a civilization that is rather recently discovered, in fact, in what used to be Soviet Central Asia. This axe is recovered from archaeological sites which include some of the largest architectural buildings, some of the most extraordinary bronze artifacts, a technology which in every way is the equal of what one finds in Mesopotamia and Egypt, dated to the very end of the third millennium.
Paul Collins
Professor Lamberg-Karlovsky notes that the confrontation depicted here can be interpreted as the conflict between good and evil. And that conflict is a tenet of the ancient Zoroastrian religion, which is still practiced today.
Carl Lamberg-Karlovsky
Historically, the prophet Zoroaster is believed to come from the region of Central Asia. For the first time with the discovery of the civilization, we have an archaeological complex that could well be the formative element of the belief, the iconography, of the Zoroastrian religious beliefs.
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