Battle is a major theme of the Shahnama (Book of Kings), the Iranian national epic, which tells of the pre-Islamic kings, whose reigns are often punctuated by warfare, and the heroes who fight on their behalf. As this painting from a late fifteenth-century Shahnama manuscript demonstrates (also see M.85.237.71), illustrators rarely shied away from depicting the battlefield violence described throughout the poem. Here, Iranian and Turanian soldiers in the heat of pitched battle gallop over the corpse of a slain trooper as one soldier pierces the side of his enemy with a spear. Notably, the figures sport armor and weapons not of the epic’s ancient setting but of the period in which they were painted.

• Pal, Pratapaditya, Thomas W. Lentz, Sheila R. Canby, Edwin Binney, 3rd, Walter B. Denny, and Stephen Markel. "Arts from Islamic Cultures: Los Angeles County Museum of Art." Arts of Asia 17, no. 6 (November/December 1987): 73-130.