David Meier

Zusammenfassung Mehrere Beispiele bronzezeitlicher Steinschneidekunst wurden Anfang der 1970er und 1980er Jahre vom Museum für Vor-und Frühgeschichte Berlin erworben. Dabei handelt es sich um drei Steingefäße mit Ritz-verzierungen, die laut Dokumentation aus der Region um Kerman stammen sollen, sowie um zwei weitere unverzierte Steinschalen, als deren Provenienz Tappeh Hesār angegeben wurde. Das Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es, die Gefäße mit Hilfe von Ergebnissen rezenter Forschungen einer Neubetrachtung und aktualisierten Ein-ordnung zu unterziehen. Abstract Several examples of Bronze Age stonecutting now kept in the collection of the Museum für Vor-und Frühge-schichte Berlin were acquired by purchase in the early 1970s and 1980s. According to the museum's record three of these carved stone-vessels allegedly originated from the area around Kerman in East Iran, another two from Tappeh Hesār. This contribution aims to describe, re-evaluate and contextualize this corpus by drawing on current research.

We discuss a figured pin from Shahdad, previously well known but published with a partial and unsatisfactory drawing. More detailed observations and a new, more realistic recording of this important artifact reconsider its stylistic and iconographic links with the imagery of the Halil Rud civilization and the eastern Iranian Plateau in general, and, at its opposite cultural poles, with Mesopotamia and the Indus valley. The subject, probably a supernatural anthropomorph flanked by two reptiles in heraldic position, is discussed in light of the art of the Halil Rud civilization, and the traditionally negative mythological associations of the " Man with serpents " in ancient Iranian literary tradition and lore.

Conference lecture about Late Third millennium metallurgy at Shahdad (I.R.Iran) at the opening conference for the exhibition "prehistoric cultures at the periphery of the Lut Desert on the base of the NMI collections" at the National Museum of Iran in Tehran on the 03.01.2017