Master of the Animals Finial
10th-8th century BCE
Description
This “master of animals” finial depicts a stylized man with an (attacking?) animal on each side. The man has a bulb-shaped cap, open at the center for insertion of a pin. The man, who is janiform (having the same face on front and back), has disc-like circular eyes and molded brows connected to a prominent triangular nose. His ears are parabolic and prominent, although the end shape is difficult to see because they are in the mouths of the beasts. His mouth is indicated by a small depression, and he has a pointed chin in low relief. The rest of the body consists of a cylinder, with a section of raised bands below the chin and another in the middle, below the animal paws, perhaps indicating the waist. A third set of raised horizontal bands at the lower body of the animals may be connected to them rather than to the human. Although the details are badly worn, on one side of the “neck” bands there is some rope-like patterning, suggesting that at least some of the other bands would have had similar additional details. The animals are highly stylized; it is not clear what animals are depicted, whether roosters or lions. The animal necks curve outward, beginning with raised bands, probably depicting their paws, and ending in elongated heads with pointed piriform ears and disc-like eyes; the snouts then extend to the mouths, which are open and touching the ears of the man. There are bands encircling the snouts at the mouth end. The animals’ bodies disappear beneath the banded area in the middle of the finial, and then their hindquarters curve out again below. They have spindly, stick-like lower legs, bent outward in a V-shape, with no clear paws gripping the cylinder, as in other examples. Each has a long, thin tail ending in a single spiral. On either side there is a bar separating the legs of the different beasts, continuing the line of the cylindrical man, but open on the sides where the tail would have been. The cylinder ends with one raised band at the bottom.
Dimensions
15.4 x 6 x 1.9 cm (6 1/16 x 2 3/8 x 3/4 in.) Diameter tube inner opening top: 0.3 cm (1/8 in.) Diameter tube inner opening bottom: 0.5 cm (3/16 in.)
Provenance
W. C. Burriss Young, Cambridge, MA, bequest; to the Harvard University Art Museums, 2002.
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