Browse Items (12 total)

This Persepolis tomb (in modern day Iran) shows a Faravahar relief in the stone. It corresponds to the practice of placing avian images on the funerary objects of elite deceased.

The tomb of Shi Jun (Wirkak) and his wife Wiyusi is more like a storyboard. Each wall depicts an event in a greater journey. The bird priests depicted here are in grisly detail and have well-hidden scarves coming off their necks, similar to Sasanian…

This mural was overhead the Eastern Buddha in the Bamiyan Valley. It shows two bird man hybrids in symmetry. The mural was destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

This is a boundary stone with ceremonial purposes. It shows Babylonian King Marduk-nadin-ahhe. Significant to us is the depiction of a king as an archer, much like the image from the earlier boundary stone.

This boundary stone far predates the other bird priest objects in our collection, but it links to them through the interesting image of the half man, half bird archer depicted alongside the cuneiform. It it notable for showing a bird man hybrid…

These bird priests have a distinctly Sasanian style, and the scarves are even more pronounced here than on the tomb of Shi Jun.

This silver plate depicts a Sasanian king, either Peroz or Kavad. Like many other examples, this silver plate shows the king in a hunting scene. We are most interested in the scarf which denotes royalty and the soul.

This ossuary depicts two priests with highly birdlike beaks (padams). It is probably a reproduceable mold.

This is a Kurdish tribal rug depicting some sort of avian mythological creature. It looks more consistently bird-like than Simurgh like, as there are no canine features, so it is possible it is the mythological Simsiyar bird, which is said to live…

This mosaic of the Iranian mythological Huma (most famously discussed in Sufi traditions) is located in Uzbekistan. Most interestingly, it features dual birds, much like the Sogdian examples of bird priests.