7th century BC. A broad hammered bronze medium-size military belt fragment or cuirass band, the register decorated in chased low-relief with actual and fantastic animals (lions, griffins, ibexes, sphinxes and birds) running left, alternating with a cross motif and enclosed within a foliage pattern; piercings for fastening a leather lining along the edges; mounted on a custom-made stand. See ?????, ?. ?., ?????????? VI-V ??. ?? ?. ?. ? ????? ?????????, 1965; Born, H., Seidl, U., Schutzwaffen aus Assyrien und Urartu, Sammlung Axel Guttmann IV, Mainz, 1995; Gorelik, M., Weapons of Ancient East, IV millennium BC-IV century BC, Saint Petersburg, 2003, in Russian. 393 grams total, 33.5cm including stand (13 1/4"). From a private collection formed in the Netherlands; previously in a European collection formed prior to 1980. The belt-cuirass preserves decorative elements very similar in style to a belt from the large collection of Caucasian and Urartian items preserved in the Rezan Has Muzesi of Istanbul, particularly the bosses and rosettes dividing the images of lions, ibexes and griffins. This allows a more certain date for the belt offered here, which was probably produced by the same Urartian workshop as the Rezan Has Muzesi parallel. [No Reserve]

Fair condition.