Asset number
312668001
Description
Brecciated dark red jasper and white-grey chalcedony matrix cylinder seal; seated man and dog; seven line inscription. Artificially dyed, banded very dark brown and bright white sardonyx cylinder seal; appears to have been worked in a grey and whitish agate and then dyed, probably using a honey solution, so that the induced colouring follows the natural banding of the material; figure (king?) in heraldic combat with two confronting monsters, and ancillary symbol. The personage stands facing right with torso presented frontally; he has a pointed beard and his hair is more in a bunch than a page-boy style at the nape of his neck; he wears an unevenly-'spiked' crown and is dressed in the Persian robe which falls with a sweeping, wider back panel, giving a strong effect of a three-quarter contour to the right; his arms are outstretched and he seizes the horns of two rampant, winged, snarling leo-gryphs, each with forelegs against his side. The monsters are lightly modelled with the head detailed with small drill-holes, the horns curve upwards over their foreheads and their manes, the ears jut out, and shoulder and haunch muscles are lightly delineated; the paws are shown by short double strokes, the talons by straight lines and the bi-and trifurcated tails curve upwards; the creatures each have one visible wing which sweeps straight back, with curving tips. The group stands on a roughly-executed base line. Above the scene hovers the winged symbol with long, straight wings uniterrupted by a central disc, and the individual feathers flare out along the lower edges of the well-defined of the wings and tail; one end of the seal remains undyed and shows that the brown colouration is restricted to the surface of the grey matrix. The undyed core is slightly milky; whitening may have been caused by the the application of heat during the dyeing process. The colour of the white bands may have been similarly intensified. Not a true barrel shape but there is a slight tapering at each end; both edges of the seal are worn with some chipping on the upper surface.
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