Hi Rand,
Sorry for the late response. It is always difficult to recognise flowers cut in steel, first it can have been difficult for the artist to show the flower in its correct form, and second we must consider the possibility of artistic freedom, which could change the look of the flower considerably. When you look at floral decoration, you should also take an interest in the leaves, as they would have been easier to make, and therefore more like in nature, and I don’t think the artist would use a lot of his ‘freedom’ to change the leaves – but one can never know. There are at least three different flowers on your shield, and one could be a rose, but I am not quite sure.
The scales around the inscription are strange, and have, maybe, only been made for decorative reasons. In some places in India the fish is holy, and there they could have used a scaled decoration, but I don’t know if it was holy anywhere in Persia.
Jens
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