cylinder seal
- Museum number
- 122130
- Description
-
Black siltstone cylinder seal; personage standing facing left, monster and symbols. The personage has a long beard and hair handing to the shoulders, his nose is prominent but his head and headgear seems flattened due to the seal's damaged upper edge; he wears a belted semi-kilt (?) with the back portion seemingly covering the right leg, the kilt proper is decorated with a criss-cross pattern (very faint), while the upper torso appears bare; with arms outstretched, he appears to be placing a (?) bridle over the head of a winged horse, semi-kneeling before him. The creature has an arched neck and an elongated body with the long tail hanging loose from a right-angled curve; the wing curves back and up obliquely with the feathers marked by transverse lines. Above the scene are placed a crescent and a winged disc with its short side wings and tail made up of three flaring horizontal and vertical lines respectively; the upper edge of the seal has been cut down or broken off and repolished.
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 0.75 centimetres
-
Height: 1.40 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- According to catalogue "two seals from Susa, both of bitumen and very worn, show what appear to be horses in a ritual situation. An impression from Susa on an Elamite tablet dated slightly earlier than the reign of Darius, shows a man extending hands to feed an animal. The winged disc is similar in size and shape to a Neo-Assyrian model on glazed bricks from Assur, dated to earlier part of the first millennium); a similar winged disc appears on a cylinder seal that is probably Neo-Elamite.
Cf. L Delaporte, 'Musée du Louvre, Catalogue des cylindres orientaux II. Acquisitions', Paris 1920-1923, pl.48:8 (S.554).
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Fair; incomplete?; the upper edge of the seal has been cut down or broken off and repolished.
- Acquisition date
- 1930
- Acquisition notes
- Deposited as part of a small collection of "3 cylinder seals, 1 small stone [sic] ram's head" on offer for £22 (£54 with pottery).
ANE Correspondence 1930: Ebrahimoff, invoice 196, and letters dated 21, 26 August 1930.
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 122130
- Registration number
- 1930,1013.3
