Bouterolle en forme de panthère enroulée

Scabbard chape in the form of a coiled panther

In addition to the general rounded shape characteristic of the ends of a scabbard, this bone object displays a teardrop excrescence that will become almost the rule on chapes during the Roman and then the Frankish Period. Perhaps the original function of this knob of sorts was to allow a strap to be passed through, in order to hold the bottom of the weapon firmly against the thigh and prevent it from swinging back and forth while the horse was galloping, or from wounding the warrior in the event of a fall.

The image is of a coiled animal, whose spine exactly follows the curve of the chape. Curled up on itself, it has the clawed feet of a carnivore, a long tail tucked under its belly, and an oversized head. The ear is heart-shaped in the archaic manner, the maw half-open. The almond eye is drawn with a certain realism. The nose is underscored by a whorl, which, in the figurative code of The Steppes, symbolizes the wolf.

Chapes of this type are particularly well attested in the Achaemenid world, both in images, like those of Median swords on the reliefs of the Apadana in Persepolis, and in reality, at archaeological finds [1].

Several points, however, bear mentioning. Not only are animal chapes attested from the seventh to sixth centuries in Ziwiye and in the Western Scythian world (swords from Kelermes and Melguno-Litoi), but the motif of coiled animals, absent from the Middle Eastern repertoire, originated in the eighth century in southern Siberia (the Arzhan panther). This may suggest that, like all the horseman’s equipment, this type of animal chape was borrowed by the Medes from their nomadic Iranian cousins of The Steppes.

Published in: Barbier-Mueller 1996, no. 8, p. 37.

[1] Cf. Bernard 1976.