cylinder seal

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Object Type
Museum number: 89326
Title: Object: The Adam and Eve Seal
Description: Greenstone facies cylinder seal; a female figure with her hair in a bun holds out her left hand and sits facing a god (identified by his horned head-dress) who holds out his right hand. Both wear plain robes and sit on either side of a date palm; Terminal: behind them is a undulating serpent rising vertically. The tree, serpent and figures carved on this greenstone cylinder seal suggested to George Smith, an Assyriologist working in the British Museum between 1840 and 1876, that the scene was related to the Old Testament story of the temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden. In fac, it is one of a well- known class of banquet scenes.
Cultures/periods: Akkadian (?); Third Dynasty of Ur (?)
Production date: 2200BC-2100BC
Materials
Dimensions: Diameter: 1.65 centimetres (max?); Diameter: 1.45 centimetres (min?); Height: 2.71 centimetres; Height: 1 inches
Bibliographic references: Collon 1982a / Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum: Cylinder Seals II: Akkadian, Post Akkadian, Ur III Periods (302); Ball 1899a / Light from the East, or the witness of the monuments (p.25, no.1)
Location: On display (G56/dc10)
Subjects: reptile; deity; tree/bush
Acquisition name
Acquisition date: 1846
Department: Middle East
BM/Big number: 89326
Registration number: 1846,0523.347

Free entry