cylinder seal
- Museum number
- 89611
- Description
-
Variegated dark red and black jasper cylinder seal; antithetical group consisting of a winged disc with curved appendage supported by a human-headed, bull-man facing right, and flanked on the left by a hero holding a sword and clasping a small sphinx, and on the right, by a worshipper; symbols appear in the field. The design is somewhat cursorily executed with cutting-wheel and and drill. The winged disc has flaring wing-and-tail feathers. The tail rests on the head of the bearded-bull-man, whose raised hands do not support anything; his tail hangs behind. The hero wears an open-fringed skirt over a short kilt and holds a curved sword at arm's length behind him. The sphinx looks as though it is leaping into his arms, although the intention was probably to show the hero grappling with it and lifting it off the ground; it is looking back over its shoulder towards the central group, its wing sticks out horizontally and it kicks forward with one hind leg. The worshipper wears a fringed robe with a fringed shawl over it and raises one hand with palm towards him; a diagonal horizontal line below probably indicates the other arm or his sword, but was never completed. In front of him are a rhomb above a horizontal fish, and above the hero on either side are a seven-rayed star and a crescent; all these motifs, including the crescent, were filed, which explains the presence of only one of the vertical rays, filed from the very top of the seal. All the figures, including the sphinx and bull-man, are bearded, with shoulder-length hair; hair and beads are rendered with groups of diagonal or horizontal lines. Edges chipped.
- Production date
- 8thC BC(late)-7thC BC
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 1.60 centimetres
-
Height: 3.20 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- According to catalogue "this seal should probably be dated to the late eighth or seventh century. Note that the hero, though Assyrian holds the sword in Babylonian manner".
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Fair; edges chipped.
- Acquisition date
- 1841
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 89611
- Registration number
- 1841,0726.112