Material Culture (2)

• ObjectGold plaque of a barsom-bearer (Oxus Treasure)

  One of the small gold votive plaques of the Oxus Treasure (British Museum 123949): a standing man in Median dress (belted tunic, trousers, and a soft hood with a neck-guard) holding before him a slim bundle of rods, the barsom of Iranian worship. It is the clearest surviving material image of the rite the texts describe, though the treasure's own archaeology is deeply uncertain.

• ObjectThe Daric (and the Siglos)

  The gold daric (~8.4 g of very pure gold) and its silver companion the siglos (~5.5 g) were the coins of the Achaemenid king, introduced by Darius I toward the end of the sixth century BCE and stamped with the running or kneeling ROYAL ARCHER, the figure the Greeks nicknamed the 'archer' (toxotēs). Minted chiefly at Sardis and circulating mainly in the western empire and as mercenary pay, they were the visible edge of a monetary economy that had barely penetrated the heartland: the Persepolis tablets show a realm still run on payment in kind and weighed silver, not coin.