The Spread Wings Motif on Armenian Steles: Its Meaning and Parallels in Sasanian Art

Abstract

This paper is a study on the so-called “spread wings”—a particular element of the Sasanian art that is attested also in other regions of the Persian Empire in Late Antiquity, including the western coast of the Persian Gulf and the Caucasus. The spread wings can be observed on Sasanian coins above the royal crowns, which are considered specific for every Sasanian sovereign, supporting astronomical elements, like the crescent, star, and, possibly, the sun. The Arabs and the peoples of the Caucasus who adopted Christianity used the spread wings element as a pedestal for the cross. In Armenian literature, there are some connections between those spread wings and glory, so that a kind of pedestal could be considered a device to exalt or glorify the element above it. The floating ribbons attached to Sasanian crowns had possibly the same meaning and were adopted also outside of proper Persia. In the same way, it could be considered correct to identify those luminaries on Sasanian crowns as divine elements connected with the religion of pre-Islamic Persia.

“Set the Gaze on Fire”: Gold-Cloth Furnishing and Sacred Propaganda in the Courts of Early Mediaeval Islam

“…119-21). Indeed, the plethora of Sasanian motifs we find in these gold embroideries, such as confronted animals, pearled roundels, "trees of life," and peacocks with ribbons symbolising the Iranian concept of farr (Compareti, 2011; Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World 3 (2022) 205-234 2015: p. 38), from the fourth-sixth/tenth-twelfth centuries, reflect the enormous influence of the Iranian textile industry throughout the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia (Feltham, 2010: p. 15).…”