Luristan bronze by most families. Taking the groups in what is now generally considered to be their broad chronological sequence, the first are the "animal finials", with two rampant confronted animals, generally a pair of large-horned ibex (or goats or mouflon sheep) or felines, facing each other with a central tube or open rings (formed at the junctions of their front and hind feet) between them. The bezoar ibex ("capra aegagrus aegagrusis"), the local wild species of goat or ibex, was already domesticated millennia before; it has large curved horns with knobbly ribs. Compared to later types, the animals are more naturalistic,
European mouflon and birthing takes place in March/April. One or two lambs are born, the suckling time is about six months. The escape behaviour of European mouflon is adapted to their actual high mountain habitat: in case of danger, they flee to inaccessible rock faces. In the lowlands, they can only escape short distances and become easy prey for pursuers. It is unclear whether the European mouflon became largely extinct in Europe as a result of its habitats being cut off and through over-hunting between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago and survived only in Corsica and Sardinia, or whether it was only