Page from the “Houghton Shahnama”: The Combat of Giv and Kamus (Primary Title)
Unknown (Artist)
Composed around AD 1000, the Shahnama (Book of Kings) is the national epic of Iran, tracing its mythic and historical past from the creation of the world, through the Persian empires, up to its 7th-century Islamic conquest. This page comes from the most sumptuous surviving illustratedmanuscript of the epic, produced in the 16th century under the patronage of the Safavid kings Shah Ismail and Shah Tahmasp. In commissioning it they were, in part, associating their own royal authority with that of the ancient Persian kings. Originally comprising more than 750 pages, a thirdof them illustrated, the grand manuscript was given to the Ottoman Sultan Selim II in 1568. It is now commonly called the “Houghton Shahnama” after Arthur A. Houghton, Jr.,who acquired it in 1959 and split it up in the 1970s. This painting depicts the combat between the Iranian hero Giv and Kamus of Kashan. It shows the moment when, surrounded by their opposing armies, Giv’s lance was “cleaved obliquely like a pen.”
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