Door handle with dragons

This door handle comprises two serpentine dragons facing one another. Their bodies, engraved with scales, each curls back on itself to form a knot and their tails, each ending in an animal head with a hooked beak, entwine themselves in a decorative motif. Their winged feet touch and their open mouths with retracted lips seem to ready to bite.

The tradition of metalwork in the Near East goes back thousands of years; it survives from Antiquity, notably in Urartu and in Sasanian Iran[1]. The use of cast bronze is documented since the beginning of Islamic art; excavations at Suse[2] and objects produced in Umeyyad Syria and Tunulid Egypt[3] have revealed many such utilitarian and decorative objects.

In Seljuk Anatolia, bronze and other more malleable copper alloys were widely used. Certain objects, in particular, inlaid decorative pieces are inspired by the metalwork tradition of Syrian and Iraqi Jezireh[4]. The technique of casting metal was nevertheless expensive and employed in pieces such as door handles and mortars[5]. It seems that the eastern region of Anatolia and northern Iraq, with their rich mineral deposits, were the centres of production of much metalwork.

The object is typical of door handles from Seljuk doors of eastern Anatolia in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Compared to other door handles of the same provenance[6], one notes the absence of a lion head which was originally set over the small back feet of the dragon and served to hold the nail which attached the handle to a door. The mosque at Cizre (eastern Anatolia) built by a local Seljuk leader[7], possessed a wooden door overlaid in bronze and decorated with copper bands and plates fixed by iron nails on which two such door handles were attached. Moreover, it is possible that the handle came from this door; a door handle was stolen from it in 1969 before the door was placed in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul. We know, moreover, from the writings of al-Jazari, author of the Compendium of Science and Mechanical Devices (dated 1206), who was in the service of the Artuqid Sultan  of Diyarbakir, that the palace doors of his patron were decorated with handles in the form of dragons. The representation of the dragon appears several times in the illustrations of his work[8].

The imagery of a dragon in the form of a serpent originates in the Far East and was probably brought to the Middle East with the nomadic peoples of Central Asia. The presence of this animal on many doors, on the threshold between the outside and inside, can be explained by the apotropaic properties it embodies. The dragon also has an astronomical significance from Antiquity, connected with lunar nodes and eclipses. It symbolises the planet which is responsible for this phenomenon, Jawzahr. It is for this reason that it appears regularly with solar and lunar symbols[9].

In addition to the many Anatolian door handles referred to, there also exist handles originating from the Syrian region of Jezireh[10]. The walls of Konya and Diyarbakir were also decorated with dragons, as was the Talisman Gate (Baghdad, 1222-1223), now destroyed. Islamic decorative arts employed this motif widely, exploiting its decorative potential, for example, in the decoration of an Iranian ceramic ewer of the thirteenth century composed of twisting dragons’ bodies[11]. Many examples of metalwork, such as lamps or candlestick bases also adopted this form[12].

[2] Fork, cast bronze with stamped decoration, Suse, Iran eigth century - ninth century, Paris, musée du Louvre, inv. MAO S.420.

[3] Tripod incense-burner, cast bronze, openwork and chasing, Egypt., eigth century - ninth century, Paris, musée du Louvre, inv. E 11707.

[4] Candle stick with hunting scenes, Anatolia, eigth century, engraved brass, inlaid with silver, gold and black paste, Paris, musée du Louvre, inv. K 3436.

[5] Mortar, bronze, twelfth century - fourteenth century, Diyarbakir, Anatolia, Istanbul, Türk ve Islam Eserleri Müzesi, inv. 4190.

[6] Door handle with dragons, beginning of thirteenth century, Berlin, Museum für islamische Kunst, inv. I 2242.

Door handle retained on the door from the mosque at Cizre, Eastern Anatolia, Istanbul, Türk ve Islam Eserleri Müzesi, inv.4082.

[7] The mosque was commissioned by Mahmud Sanjar Shah (1208-1241), atabeg of the Artuqid rulers.

[8] Clock with elephant, Jezireh, December 1315, gouache on paper, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 57.21.23. Page from the manuscript of the Compendium of Science and Mechanical Devices, by al-Jazari, representing a door handle with dragons, Kuwait, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, al-Sabah Collection.

[9] Frontispiece of the Book of Antidotes, Near East, 1199, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, arabe MS 2964, f. 36-37.

[10] Door handle with dragons, Jezireh, end C12th – beginning C13th, cast bronze, Paris, musée du Louvre, inv. MAO 97.

[11] Ewer with dragons, Kachan ( ?), Iran, beginning thirteenth century, Paris, musée du Louvre, inv. MAO 444.

[12] Candlestick with two dragon heads, Eastern Iran or Central Asia, fifteenth century, cast copper alloy, engraved, Copenhagen, Davids Samling, inv. 38/1982.