Handle, possibly for a spoon
Not on view
This elaborate silver handle is decorated with the head of a calf at one end and the head of a lion at the other; a third creature, difficult to identify, emerges from the lion’s mouth. The creature’s long snout is split horizontally, and presumably the bowl of a spoon or another implement was originally inserted there,
A silver spoon with a loop handle decorated with the head of a duck was excavated at a palace at Pasargadae, the first capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. That spoon was likely used at the royal table, and probably this spoon was as well. There was a long history in Iran of decorating vessels with animal features, and the Achaemenids adopted and expanded this practice.
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