Plate with a tigress attacking an ibex

Large wild cats, the dominant beasts of the animal kingdom, have long been associated with royalty, the pinnacle of the human social hierarchy. The sovereigns of the ancient Near Eastern civilizations, such as the Assyrian kings, made lions a decorative focus of their palaces and tombs and possessed personal objects embellished with images of these ferocious creatures. Steady contact with the Near East from the Bronze Age onward infused the cultures of the Medi-terranean with this notional connection between the masters of the animal and human realms. The Helladic civilization borrowed heavily from the preceding Minoan civilization of Crete, serving as a conduit for the introduction of Near Eastern artistic themes to the Greek mainland in the late Bronze Age. The fascination with large cats continued for millennia. While images of men hunting lions regularly appear on luxury items-especially silver vessels-made by Byzantine and Sassanian (Persian) artisans, this Early Byzantine plate, decorated in raised relief with finely incised details, is a unique presentation of a tigress overwhelming an ibex. The centripetal composition of the tigress hurtling onto its prey from a raised position into the center of the plate, with a tree arcing over the assault, responds ingeniously to the circular format of the plate.