Ivory casket with enamel decoration from Santo Domingo de Silos

This casket, with its pyramidal shaped lid was constructed with sheets of ivory on a wooden framework. During the eleventh century[1], the ‘Abd al-Rahman caliphs had a plentiful supply of ivory, which enabled the production of numerous objects. During the era of the Taifas however this stock was reduced and the extremely fine sheets of ivory and the dowels of the same material used to fix it to its wooden frame, bear witness to this shortage.

Its shape is reminiscent of earlier Byzantine caskets and other caskets of the same shape in ivory and precious metals still exist[2]. Originally all the faces of this casket were covered in sculpted ivory but sheets covering the left side and top of the lid were soon lost and replaced by copper sheets decorated with champlevé enamel. On the front and back, a band decorated with an elegant floral garland marks the join with the lid. On one side a Christian scene inspired by the history of the monastery can be observed. Santo Domingo is pictured hording a reliquary, flanked by two angels. The top of the lid is decorated with on oval at its centre, containing the Mystic Lamb set between the symbols of Alpha and Omega. This oval is framed by birds, whose tail feathers end in scrolls. The sculpted ivory features scenes dear to Islamic princes of the period: a lion hunt, fights between animals, a galloping horseman defending his horse from a lion. These designs are oriental in origin; the theme of a combat between a ferocious lion and weaker animals (an ox or perhaps a horse) had already been used in Pre-Achaemenid Persia, where it represented the power of the sovereign. Other animal figures are also represented: griffins, winged unicorns facing each other around a tree, gazelles, a lion cub…On one side we can see a central panel occupied by two peacocks with their necks entwined, flanked by long-horned stags. In the Christian world, the peacock is a symbol of immortality but it has other connotations for the Muslims. Peacocks with entwined necks were regularly used as a decorative motif from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries[3]. This casket shows the influence of the ivory craftsmen of Cordoba in its use if floral motifs but it distances itself through the smaller scale of the decoration using small panels in repetition and through the somewhat dry and crude treatment of the figures. The same style can be found on the casket found in the Palencia cathedral, which also exhibits champlevé enamels.

[2] The Palencia ivory casket (Madrid, 1049 – 1050), the al-Mughira pyxis (Louvre, 968), Agate casket of Saint Isadore de Leon…

[3] Painted pyxis “Homberg”, Louvre Museum, the Xativa basin…

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