cylinder seal
- Museum number
- 129568
- Description
-
Streaked red and pinks cornelian cylinder seal with white inclusions; crowned figure in combat with two confronting monsters, and ancillary symbol. The personage stands facing right with torso presented frontally, his beard is marked by fine diagonal striations across the cheek and vertically to a square tip, his hair is bunched at the nape of the neck and his face is strongly modelled; he wears a dentate crown with triangular teeth in a circlet with zig-zag decoration, is dressed in a Persian robe with a triple-knotted belt, and his shoes are shown with one strap; his arms are outstretched and slightly raised and he seizes the horns of two rampant, winged, snarling leo-gryphs (lion headed griffins). These creatures each raise one foreleg and extend the other, the manes appear as bristles along the neck crests, drill-holes emphasize the eye, muzzle, backward-curving horns, paws, claws, talons and tips of the bifurcated tails, and curved ridges mark the haunch muscles and ventral projections emerge from under the wings in the rib area; each wing sweeps back to fully curled tips with the feathers singled out from the upper ridge which is almost an extension of the forelegs. Between the leo-gryph to the right and the personage is the three-quarter-length bust (of deity), facing right and rising from a crescent; the small figure is similar in appearence to the personage, but the crown is finely 'spiked', the hands stretch out, one holding a lotus-type plant and the other with raised open palm; both edges are worn and chipped, particularly the upper edge.
- Production date
- 500BC (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 0.90 centimetres
-
Height: 1.70 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- According to Merrillees catalogue "the bust positioned in the half circle, i.e the crescent only, and not a complete circle around the bust, is without parallel and could be due to a miscalculation of space or a later addition to the completed scene....The curved ventral extension under the wing of the leo-gryphs is close to examples on Achaemenid reliefs".
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Fair; both edges are worn and chipped, particularly the upper edge.
- Acquisition date
- 1945
- Acquisition notes
- Acquired by Southesk from W.T Ready in 1890.
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 129568
- Registration number
- 1945,1013.112