Artefact
Describing serpents only through texts cannot fulfill the audience’s imagination of the monster, and illustrations of the Serpent King Zahhak are not rare in Iranian culture. The main artifact for this project is a page in a Medieval Iranian manuscript of Shahnameh which has an illustration of Zahhak with two snakes on his shoulders, which provides a visual depiction of the monsters. In the illustration, King Zahhak is solemnly sitting on a luxurious throne with his subjects in front of him. Flowers and strange plants dot the desert-like background. As a typical work in Turkmen style, the overall arrangement of the illustration is simple: the stock figures and faces, the colorful clothes of the people, and the stereotypical landscape background create a man-made environment for the audience to see what happens in the story in a more direct way than reading the text.[1] The text in the manuscript was written by a well-skilled calligrapher, who ingeniously arranged the words in six columns and the illustration is finely fitted in the center of the page.[2] The manuscript was completed on 18 June 1489 as a commercial painting by the Iranian artist Shams al-Din 'Ali b. Muhammad b. al-Husain al-Fakhr-Din al-Fushtaqi al-Kirmani, and is now preserved in Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library) and numbered as “Ms. or. fol. 4255”.[3] “Ms. or. fol. 4255” is considered to be a masterpiece from the Turkman period, and a typical product of the workshops in Shirazi, one of the most famous cities in Medieval Iran.[4] Manuscripts like “Ms. or. fol. 4255” had been produced in a considerable amount during that period and were sold as commodities; however, the overall execution of the manuscript “Ms. or. fol. 4255” ranks above the average quality of Shirazi Turkman work, so it may be the result of a special commission: as shown in the colophon of the manuscript, the original owner of “Ms. or. fol. 4255” was called shahryar Khwaja Karim al-Daula ... Hasan b. Khwaja 'Ala al-Daula wa'l-Dunya Muhammad al-Fakhrabadi al-Ramjirdi, but the manuscript traveled to the hands of the Ottoman sultan 'Abd al-Majid in the 19th century and was possessed in his palace before entered Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin in 1941.[5] Although icons are controversial and restricted in most parts of the Islamic world, medieval Iran had a flourishing tradition of making illustrations, and plenty of masterpieces remain today. The colorful illustrations for books are known as “Iranian Miniature”. Many of these illustrations employed pigments made from minerals like gold and silver, which make the depictions of the scenes look glorious: for example, the rubric on the page of “Ms. or. fol. 4255” is written in gold and all Chinese-looking ornaments on the figures’ clothes are all painted in gold.[6]
[1] “Shahnama (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Ms. or. fol. 4255),” University of Cambridge Digital Library, accessed November 13, 2023, https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-BE-MS-OR-FOL-042.
[2] “Shahnama (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Ms. or. fol. 4255),” University of Cambridge Digital Library, accessed November 13, 2023, https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-BE-MS-OR-FOL-042.
[3] “Shahnama (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Ms. or. fol. 4255),” University of Cambridge Digital Library, accessed November 13, 2023, https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-BE-MS-OR-FOL-042.
[4] “Shahnama.”
[5] “Shahnama.”
[6] “Shahnama.”
The production of miniature paintings like the one in “Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Ms. or. fol.
4255” has a long-lasting tradition in Iran. The second artifact is a page of an Iranian manuscript of Shahnameh from an earlier period depicting a similar scene of Zahhak compared to the primary object. The manuscript is known as Demotte Shahnameh, which was produced in the early 14th century when the Iranian world was ruled by the Mongol Ilkhanate, and is considered to be one of the earliest illustrated manuscripts of Shahnameh in the art form “Iranian Miniature”.[1] In the illustration, the King Zahhak with two serpents on his shoulder is consulting the physicians at court. This piece of manuscript is less colorful than the primary object due to its older age, but the similarity of depicting figures compared to the primary artifact illustrates that the art of Iranian Miniature was passed down with an intact tradition from the 14th to the 15th century.
[1] Robert Hillenbrand, The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256–1353 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 1.
Depictions of serpents as mythological beings in the Middle Ages were not limited to the Iranian world: in Medieval China, serpents were frequently painted on burial objects; however, unlike in Medieval Europe and West Asia where serpents were considered evil beings, in Medieval East Asia, the ancestors of human beings were considered to be two serpents who were brother and sister in the Han Chinese culture. Fuxi and Nyuwa, the siblings, got married and gave birth to a new generation of human beings after the great flood that almost destroyed humankind.[1] The painting depicting Fuxi and Nyuwa painted in the 8th century and now being preserved in the Palace Museum shows how people in Medieval China considered and depicted serpents in a different way from the Iranian people who produced the illustrations on the manuscripts of Shahnameh.[2] It could be seen that in Medieval Chinese culture, serpents were respectable figures and independent divines, who were different from the Medieval Western serpents that were evil and obedient to a more powerful figure like King Zahhak or the dragon in Kallimachos & Chrysorroi. This painting was excavated in a tomb in modern-day Turpan, Xinjiang.[3] Tens of similar paintings from the 8th century had been excavated from different tombs in modern-day Turpan, and these paintings were usually installed on the ceilings of the tomb chambers.[4] In the paintings, Fuxi and Nyuwa show an intimate position with their tails crossed together. Fuxi, the husband, is holding an ancient tool for drawing squares, Ju, which represents the earth, and Nyuwa, the wife, is holding a Gui, a tool for drawing squares and represents the heaven: the round image composed of surrounding dots above the first parents shows the sun and its counterpart below the serpents represents the moon; the other dots in the painting, some of which are connected by lines, represents the massive stars in the sky.[5] The whole painting shows the first parents of humans, who are in serpentine form, staying in the center of the universe and occupied the majority of the space.[6] As the painting is hanging on the top of the tomb chamber, audience from below can see the universe guarded by the first parents of humans, the two strong serpents, who can provide safety to the dead person.[7]
[1] Lihui Yang and Deming An, Handbook of Chinese Mythology (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005), 68.
[2] “Fuxi and Nyuwa,” The Palace Museum, accessed November 3, 2023, https://www.dpm.org.cn/collection/paint/230797.
[3] “Fuxi and Nyuwa.”
[4] “Fuxi and Nyuwa.”
[5] “Fuxi and Nyuwa.”
[6] “Fuxi and Nyuwa.”
[7] “Fuxi and Nyuwa.”