No photographText frame in place of a photograph
Plate with a king hunting rams
- Material
- Silver, mercury gilding, niello inlay
- Dimensions
- H. 1 7/8 in. (4.6 cm), Diam. 8 5/8 in. (21.9 cm)
- Date as given by the source
- ca. mid-5th-mid-6th century CE
- Record number
- 34.33
- Held by
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The source has an openly licensed image; it is not included here yet
Museum recordDocumented object · Sasanian, per the catalogue
Plate with a king hunting rams
A gilded Sasanian silver plate that the museum dates to about the mid-5th to mid-6th century CE. The king's identity is uncertain, and the findspot is known only from what was "said" at the time of acquisition.
Date as given by the sourceca. mid-5th-mid-6th century CEAs worded by the source: ca. mid-5th-mid-6th century CE; period and culture: Sasanian
What you see
What you see
A silver plate 4.6 cm high and 21.9 cm in diameter showing, as the record's title says, a king hunting rams; the record's subject tags are kings, men, hunting, horses and rams. According to the museum's description, the king has various royal attributes: a crown and fillet, a covered globe, a nimbus with a beaded border, and a beaded chest halter with fluttering ribbons. To provide high relief, separate pieces of silver were inserted into lips cut up from the plate; the vessel was then gilded with an amalgam of mercury and gold, and niello, a metallic alloy of sulphur and silver, was inlaid. This page has no photograph: the museum's record marks its image as public domain, but it is not yet included here. Source 1.
What the record says
The record dates the plate "ca. mid-5th-mid-6th century CE" and gives "Sasanian" as both period and culture; its normalised range is 459-531. The geography line reads "Iran, said at the time of the acquisition to have been found in Qazvin": the findspot is a statement passed on when the plate was acquired, not an excavated context. The identity of the king, the description says, is uncertain: his crown identifies him as either Peroz (r. 459-484) or Kavad I (r. 488-497, 499-531). The range 459-531 runs from the start of Peroz's reign to the end of Kavad I's, as the description gives them. Source 1.
Placement on the timeline
The record names the period, "Sasanian", and its range lies wholly inside the site's Sasanian Iran (224-651), so the plate is placed there on the basis of the period the source names. According to the description, the king as hunter had become a standard royal image on silver plates during the reign of Shapur II (310-379), and such plates were often sent as gifts to neighbouring courts. The Met's timeline for Iran, 1-500 CE describes Sasanian imperial art as depicting the ruler on rock reliefs and on objects of precious materials such as silver, and lists this plate, 34.33, among the works of art on its page. Neither source says where this plate was made or to whom it was given. Sources 1, 2.
Where it is now
Held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, record 34.33, Fletcher Fund, 1934. On 24 October 2026 the record page stated "Not on view". Source 1.
The object's connections
The object's connections
Culture, period, place, type and holder: every connection comes from the record or a cited source.
Object
Plate with a king hunting rams
Period
- Sasanian Iran: cities, sanctuaries and royal silverPer the museum
Region
Source
Sources and further reading
The research and references behind this page. Rights to external content remain with their owners.
- 1
Plate with king hunting rams, collection record 34.33
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Checked
- 2
Iran, 1-500 A.D. (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, chronology)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Checked