Hittite Art | Nature

ABSTRACT A REPRESENTATION of a bull in silver from recent excavations in Anatolia, and described as the most important work of art of Hittite origin yet discovered, is to be exhibited at the

forthcoming Antique Dealers Fair to be held at Grosvenor House, London, W.I. The figure is seven inches high, and is mounted on bronze and inlaid with gold. It is dated tentatively at the

third millennium B.C. As an evidence of high artistic culture, it is without parallel among Hittite antiquities. An obvious comparison with Sumerian bulls from Ur is suggested. To this,

reference is made by Prof. Ernst Herzfeld, whose authority on Hittite objects is unquestionable. In an interview with a representative of The Times, which appears in the issue of September

16, he discusses the affinities of the Hittite bull with other finds from Anatolia and elsewhere, mentioning in particular the figurines from mounds in south Russia and the Caucasus, of

which the best known are in the Hermitage Museum, and a terra-cotta bull (Bos primigenius) from Nihawand in his own collection, which belongs to the Early Bronze Age of the third millennium

B.C. Prof. Herzfeld also directs attention to the principle, important in discussion of the qualities and characteristics of art in the ancient East, and of a relevance here, which will be

immediately apparent to archaeologists, that down to Achaemenid times verisimilitude in line is frequently sacrificed to an artistic convention in attitude, which assimilates one species to

another. This is apparent in this example in the manner in which the legs of a bull are represented in an attitude essentially capriform. It is thus evident that even at the early date to

which this bull is assigned, an art, Hittite in all essentials, already conformed to a generalised eastern convention. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of

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CITE THIS ARTICLE Hittite Art. _Nature_ 136, 469 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136469a0 Download citation * Issue Date: 21 September 1935 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136469a0 SHARE THIS

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