Moya Catherine Carey uses a silver-gilt plate (Sasanian period) Iran Bastan Museum 1275, Tehran, for the typical costume on Sasanian royal hunting plates:


It has the king sitting backwards on the horse. This is unusual as other Sassanid and post Sassanid plates have figures making Parthian shots mounted normally. For example:



Turushev plate, A Sasanian King Hunting Lions, 310-320 CE, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg


Hormizd plate, A Sasanian King Hunting Lions, 5th-6th Century, The Cleveland Museum of Art 1962.150


Ufa plate, Sasanian King Hunting Mountain Sheep, 1st half 7th century, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg


Post Sasanian or Khorosanian Dish with hunting scene, 7th-9th century, Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg


Did they ride facing backwards? Is Iran Bastan Museum 1275 plate indeed Sasanian? Does it have a better dating?

Mirror site:
Silver-gilt plate (Sasanian period) Iran Bastan Museum 1275, Tehran

Druzhina
Plates with figures from Persia and Central Asia

Curious. I wonder if it was a joke? Or perhaps a drunk silversmith?

Perhaps it's one of those incidents that needed to be celebrated in art!
Or maybe the artist was working from instructions and got it wrong (the noble king, facing backwards....)