Scabbard chape

This is a chape – the endpiece of a scabbard for a short sword. It is decorated on either side with a relief of a stylized horned animal, perhaps a goat or bull, whose body is curled up such that its hindleg is front of its face. Its back, in the shape of a dome, forms the very end of the scabbard, which, together with the creature’s rump and curved horns, create a triangular composition. The chape is made of a cooper alloy and would have originally been attached to the rest of the scabbard with two rivets which still survive, even though the scabbard itself evidently does not.

There are many chapes decorated with rolled animal motifs of this sort, made of metal or ivory. They are associated with the Achaemenid Persian Empire because many of the scabbards depicted in the reliefs at Persepolis feature very similar imagery. These rolled animals also appear prominently in Scythian art. Like the Persians, the Scythians were an Iranian-speaking people originating in Central Asia, and this shared imagery indicates both their common origin and close contacts. Indeed, the Persians counted several different groups of Scythians (called ‘Saka’ in Old Persian), including the ‘Scythians beyond the sea,’ the ‘haoma-drinking Scythians’ and the ‘Scythians with pointed hats,’ among their subjects