HE star of Sotheby’s October London Islamic sale happened to be my favourite lot of the autumn. As a bonus, the catalogue entry included a word that was new to me, although probably familiar to many COUNTRY LIFE readers. This was ‘stot’ or, as the catalogue had it, ‘stott’. I knew one of its meanings, a young bull or steer, but not that it could also be the upward jump of an alarmed gazelle. Obviously, the 8th-century Umayyad bronze aquamanile in the form of a buck oryx was not shown actually jumping, because all four