A dwarf in all his glory

Back to Bes. The well-known Egyptian deity is placed right in the middle of the necklace, surrounded by horses. Bes looks us directly in the eye, as he so often does in other representations. He shows you his beastly grimace and thick eyebrows above his deep-set eyes, which were originally inlaid.See: Ellen Rehm. Der Schmuck der Achämeniden. Altertumskunde des Vorderen Orients 2. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1992, p. 116 Parts of his plump face and big mouth are covered by his furry beard, resembling the manes of a lion. His nose is rather big and out of proportion, just like his animalistic ears. Bes is wearing a crown or headdress made out of six long feathers placed on a base (Fig. 5). Bes was probably brought over to Iran by Egyptian visitors by means of apotropaic amulets. Evidence from the Persepolis Fortification TabletsA large collection of Ancient Persian cuneiform administrative texts, written between 506 and 497 BCE; see for the tablets livius.orgmakes it clear that the elite was also interested in non-Persian styles and motifs from abroad. Thus, Bes was not only incorporated into popular religious motifs, the motifs used by the common people in their domestic context, but also into the iconography of luxurious, specialistic objects used to portray the wealth of the elite. See: Abdi, Kamyar. ‘Notes on the Iranianization of Bes in the Achaemenid Empire’. Ars Orientalis 32 (2002): 133–62.