Asset number
1569269001
Description
Grey chalcedony cylinder seal with whitish, brown and black inclusions; the lower parts of two winged sphinxes or bulls (possibly human-headed - Mastichoras?) lunging towards each other; a crescent, a star and a cactus-like plant (in a pot? - damaged); later recutting. The leonine bodies would suggest sphinxes but the elongated curve of the tails would perhaps favour bulls. The bodies of the creatures consist of two parallels grooves, their lowered forepaws are joined by a vertical stroke, no hindfeet are indicated and only one wing is shown with two rows of horizontal feathers executed with a fine file. There was never any room for a hero or for two head between them; it is not clear what was originally cut because the seal was either chipped and smoothed or severely abraded, and a single, frontal head was cut, linking the two bodies. It has vertical striation on top of its head, two pointed ears, a "T"-shape for the eyebrows and nose ending in a small drill-hole, two small drill-holes for the eyes, two horizontal lines for the mouth, six verticals ending in cross-hatching for the beard and diagonal lines at the junction of the two bodies. The head is crude but the tools used were fine, in contrast to the worn grooves of the earlier cutting. Although the eight-rayed star probably belonged to the earlier design, it seems to have been crudely recut at the same time as the head, the Gnostic signs of the third to sixth centuries AD below it and a small altar (?) between the creatures, consisting of two horizontals resting on two verticals supported by one or more horizontals (chipped). The seal is worn, abraded and badly chipped, particularly at the lower end; faults in the stone across the creature on the right and by the star. Slightly convex ends (the barrel-shape is probably not original).
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