Сасанидские боевые рельефы и происхождение темы конной дуэли на пиках в прокламативном искусстве доисламского Ирана

The article deals with a group of six Sassanian rock combat reliefs depicting duels between the cataphracts — mounted lancers encased, like their horses, in full armour. The present author, based on the use of comparative-iconographic and historical-cultural methods, has come to a conclusion that the unique iconographic theme in question, symbolically reflecting the real events of Sasanian history in the form, as a rule, of fictional single combats of the leaders, had formed quite independently from external influences in the art of Parthian Iran and was then borrowed by the Sasanians.