The following essay is from the 1996 publication Gods, Men, and Heroes: Ancient Art at the Dallas Museum of Art.

One of the grandest examples of cabinetry in the Reves Collection is this rare, architectural cabinet on stand. Its front and sides feature pale ivory panels of stained woods and tinted ivories in intricate floral designs likely based on Flemish, German, or French engravings.

There are many striking animal support figures in Achaemenid Persian art. This figure, which may have been the support of a bronze vessel, is much mor

An exceptionally refined piece, this tripod may reflect the influence of Assyrian art, with its great man-animal sculptures.

Ornamental bronze pins are another example of Luristanian bronze work employing animal imagery. The Dallas Museum of Art ram-headed example was cast by the lost-wax method in five pieces (each pair of horns, each animal head, and the pin itself).

This Luristanian horse bit makes an interesting comparison with a more elaborate Villanovan horse bit (1969.6), also in the collection of the Dallas Museum of Art.

This bronze figurine, usually described as a standard finial, consists of a composite human figure and animals. The upper part of the figure holds two mythological animals of lion-monster form in the "master of animals" position.

This ornamental figure originally sat on the top of a ceremonial standard carried in ritual processions. The image, which combines human and animal elements, may represent deities associated with fertility and the powers of weather.

One of the more unusual gifts ever to enter the Dallas Museum of Art's collection was received at the end of 1982. The Mr. and Mrs.

This bronze cart drawn by a pair of long-horned oxen is one of many examples of an artistic type well known from the early second millennium B.C.E.  Such models were probably votive offerings, to be left in shrines, sacred caches, or tombs.