The fifteen compartments on either side of Bes’ head fill up most of the space in this necklace. The compartments show riders on top of their horses rigged with reins.
Horses were a relatively late addition to the iconography of the Ancient Near East. The domestication of the horse took place in the first half of the third millennium BCE. In this period of time, horses were mostly depicted as labor animals. See: De Backer, Liesbet, and Ernie Haerinck. Paarden en Strijdwagens in de iconografie van de Achaemeniden. 2007. Diss.
However, once it had established its place, the horse featured heavily in the art of this region See: Root, Margaret Cool. ‘Animals in the Art of Ancient Iran’. In A History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East, edited by Billie Jean Collins, 169–209. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2002.. The significance of the Achaemenid horse motif could be summarized as supporting the sovereignty of the king and accentuating the power of the military on the one hand, while reflecting the faith of the Iranian religion on the other hand Shokrpour, Shahryar, Reyhaneh Rashidi, and Fatemeh Barmaki. ‘Semiotics of Animal Motifs in the Jewelry of the Achaemenid Era’. Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage. 17 (2017): 169-81. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1973-9494/7954..