Dish with King Hormizd II or Hormizd III Hunting Lions

This silver-gilt dish, dated broadly to approximately AD 400–600, depicts a Sasanian king engaged in lion hunting from horseback. The figure's crown has been identified by researchers as matching the distinctive headgear associated with Hormizd II (reigned AD 303–309), yet the style of the horse's trappings and the rider's equipment points to manufacture well after his reign—possibly as a commemorative or dynastic tribute produced under Hormizd III (reigned AD 457–459) or another later successor. The dish is now housed at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Sasanian royal silver of this type was produced through a repoussé and gilding process, and such vessels circulated as prestige gifts reinforcing monarchical ideology. The lion hunt as a royal motif has deep roots in ancient Near Eastern visual culture, attested prominently in Assyrian palace reliefs of the ninth through seventh centuries BC, where kings of Nineveh depicted themselves slaying lions as a demonstration of divinely sanctioned power. The theme persisted across the Achaemenid and Parthian periods before reaching its elaborate Sasanian expression. While the Hebrew Bible references lion hunting in passing—notably Ezekiel 19 employing the lion hunt as a metaphor for the capture of Judahite kings—the motif here is artistic and political rather than directly textual. The dish illustrates the continuity of royal iconographic conventions across cultures and centuries that formed the broader world within which the biblical narratives were composed and transmitted. Sources: Cleveland Museum of Art (accession records); Prudence O. Harper, 'The Royal Hunter: Art of the Sasanian Empire' (Asia Society, 1978); Guitty Azarpay, contributions in 'Iranica Antiqua' on Sasanian metalwork.