cylinder seal
- Museum number
- 132234
- Description
-
Fragment of a brown chalcedony cylinder seal; engraved; personage holding a small figure, inscription. A human (worshipper?), seemingly female, stands facing right in full profile (the head and neck are missing - see below); she is dressed in a full-length robe, belted at her narrow waist, over she wears a transparent (?), narrow-bordered mantle that appears to open at the side leaving an apron effect in front; on her extended right hand is a small, slender figure, possibly a child, (upper part missing) and she steadies it with her left hand (missing). This figure sits with knees raised and has one arm slightly lifted from the side, holding a spherical object (or is it a pigtail?). The engraving is delicate with light modelling. Before the figures is a framed inscription with the last four lines of a cuneiform inscription, written horizontally; the upper part of the seal has been broken off, eliminating the heads of the figures and some of the inscription; the lower edge is also chipped.
- Production date
- 7thC BC-6thC BC
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 0.20 centimetres (of perforation)
-
Diameter: 1.10 centimetres
-
Length: 2.20 centimetres (surviving)
-
Weight: 5.50 grammes
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- According to Merrillees catalogue "although there does not seem to be any parallel for the two figures, an impression of a tablet from the Apadana in Susa shows a similar long-robed figure feeding an animal, with an inscription at the side. A chalcedony cylinder in similar style shows two long-robbed figures facing each other, both with headdresses and long plaits, one perhaps female and, to the side, an Elamite inscription.... John Boardman (personal communication) has suggested that the small figure being carried may be a squatting infant Horus".
- Location
- On display (G52/dc1)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
G52/IRAN/5, from official opening 17/11/95-6 Dec 2005.
- Condition
- Incomplete; upper part has been broken off; lower edge is chipped.
- Acquisition date
- 1957
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 132234
- Registration number
- 1957,1017.7
