cylinder seal
- Museum number
- 89359
- Description
-
Green jasper cylinder seal; A tall male figure faces right, raises a cup as for a libation and grasps the left hand of a small male figure who holds a jar in the other hand. The tall man wears a high conical headdress, his hair hangs down to the shoulder where it turns up in a thick roll, and his kilt has a double belt, is decorated with horizontal pairs of lines and two further lines link the tassels that hang between his legs. The hair of the small figure is not visible and may be covered by a tight-fitting cap, and he wears a plain tunic or kilt with two tassels hanging between his legs; above him is a six-pointed star. At a distance from these two figures stands a woman or a beardless man with shoulder-length hair, holding an upright harp with the ends of the four strings hanging below the horizontal arm of the instrument. The figure wears a long garment with a double belt, the skirt of which is ornamented with two horizontal bands of ladder-pattern; the hands playing the instrument are clearly defined. The scene is framed a single stylised tree of which the crown consists of a palmette of seven slender radiating leaves above two upturned volutes, at the top of the stem is a ring which seems to encircle the tree, two smaller volutes, from which single fruit or leaves emerge, turn downwards below the ring, and at the bottom of the stem are two palm leaves above two down-curving volutes which probably indicate emerging curled-up shoots.
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 0.98 centimetres
-
Height: 2.27 centimetres (with loop)
-
Height: 1.81 centimetres (without loop)
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- the loop handle is carved in one piece with the cylinder; a filed(?) groove between the tree and the main figure and extending onto one side of the loop, reveals a creamy colour below the duck-egg green surface; the base of the cylinder is flat and undecorated.
- Acquisition date
- 1825
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 89359
- Registration number
- 1825,0503.161
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: R.161
