Beaker with Birds and Animals in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2008

Beaker with Birds and Animals
Silver
Thrace, lower Danube region
Thraco-Getian, 4th century BC

Accession # 47.100.88

The scene depicts a row of stags, a goat, a bird, and a bird of prey attacking a fish and a hare. On the base is a beast eating the leg of an animal while holding another in its claws. A vessel almost identical in form and representation to this example was excavated at Agighiol in Romania. The extraordinary and exotic stylization- for example birds' heads projecting from antlers- is foreign to Western concepts and powerfully reflects Central Asian sensibilities and ideology.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.