The Wade Cup with Animated Script
1200–1221
- Medium
- brass inlaid with silver
- Classification
- Metalwork
- Dimensions
- Overall: 11.5 cm (4 1/2 in.); Diameter: 16.1 cm (6 5/16 in.)
- Culture
- Iran, Seljuq period of Iran (1037–1194)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Islamic Art
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
The highlight of the cup’s decoration is the inscription around the rim, which you see on the walls around you, with letters composed of human figures, animals, and birds. This is known as animated script and it developed in northeast Iran or Afghanistan during the mid-1100s and migrated westward. The inscription on the rim of the Wade Cup is the pinnacle of this form of script with its full-figure animation. The body of the cup is covered with interlacing bands of compartments containing tiny figures of humans and animals. These represent the 12 signs of the zodiac from astrology, the practice of interpreting the influence of planets and stars on earthly affairs. Astrology began in Mesopotamia, was adopted by the Greeks, and then absorbed into medieval Islamic culture through translations of Greek texts.
