antler, ornament

Erroneously marked ”MM 1959:008”.
When Telemachus visited Nestor in Pylos in his search for his father Odysseus, the wise king honored him and his companion Athena with a costly sacrifice, a heifer with her horns overlaid with gold. “The heifer came from the plain and from the swift shapely ship came the comrades of great-hearted Telemachus; the smith came, bearing in his hands his tools of bronze, the implements of his craft, anvil and hammer and well-made tongs, wherewith he wrought the gold, and Athene came to accept this sacrifice. Then the old man Nestor, the driver of chariots, gave gold, and the smith prepared it, and overlaid the horns of the heifer, that the goddess might rejoice when she beheld the offering” (Od. III, 430-438).
This Homeric passage helps us to understand the function of the horn, with its tip sheathed in gold, in the Békésy Collection. According to Prof. Nils-Gustaf Gejvall the horn is a snag from the antler of a red deer. From the earliest Neolithic villages (Çatal Hüyük) down to the Greek cult of Artemis and later of Diana the red deer was a sacred animal in Anatolia. The habit of sheathing the horns of sacrificial animals in precious materials was known from Mesopotamia to Greece. The red deer was, however, particularly revered in Anatolia. Many snags have been found in Anatolian votive dumps, especially from Troy. It therefore seems reasonable to assume that this snag originates from Anatolia. It is the only one known to us with a tip sheathed in gold. There is also a pierced hole for suspension. As few other objects this horn evokes scenes of a pageant past with costly royal sacrifices.
“Now when they had prayed, and had strewn the barley grains, straightway the son of Nestor, Thrasymedes, high of heart, came near and dealt the blow; and the axe cut through the sinews of the neck, and loosened the strength of the heifer. Then the women raised the sacred cry, the daughters and the sons’ wives and the revered wife of Nestor” (Od. III, 447-452).Madeleine von Heland