The lively, vital art of the Sassanids drew inspiration from many cultures, including ancient Near Eastern and Hellenistic Greek. This magnificent gem depicts a winged horse surmounted by the head of a king. Such fantastic man-beasts can be traced back to Assyria and Mesopotamia, but the centaur or pegasus was also popular in the iconography of Hellenistic cuture with which the Sassanids were familiar. The inscription, apparently a name, translates "Nphkyn'n". The image of a powerful horse, with a distinctly human head, flying through a starlit sky evokes the magic of that vanished world, and takes us on a journey to the distant borders of the imagination. - (FJ.2690)