- Museum number
- 89324
- Description
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Cylinder seal: of eyed sardonyx (artificially dyed), banded very dark brown and bright white, brown colouration restricted to the surface of an essentially grey matrix possibly grey and whitish agate. This seal stamp shows a double scene of ritual and combat. In the first scene a bearded priest or worshipper, presented in profile to right, has a long, square-tipped beard and a domed hair-style, a band above his eye, and horizontal lines indicating the hair falling to his shoulder. He wears a circlet or diadem (?) and is dressed in a long, belted, Neo-Babylonian garment with back pleat and fringed hem-line; his raised hand is turned palm towards him and he stands before an incense-burner and symbols on a temple-shaped altar beneath a crescent. The incense-burner consists of a trumpet-shaped stand with one horizontal near the top and two at the top, on which rests a cone-shaped burner. The altar consists of a vertically-striated rectangle on which lies a 'mushhushshu' dragon, facing left, with a raised tail, supporting the spade of Marduk which has a horizontal cross-bar beneath its triangular head.
The second scene, which is smaller in size, depicts a contest; a personage (a royal hero or king) stands facing right, his torso presented frontally; his long, square-tipped beard and hair in a bun at the nape of the neck are striated; he wears a 'spiked' dentate crown and is dressed in the Persian robe; with elbows bent, he reaches upwards to seize the throats of two rampant, snarling lions. The manes of the animals appear as a row of fine bristles on the ridge of the head and neck, small drill-holes emphasize the head, the musculature is well defined, the paws are marked out by short double strokes and the tufted tails curl up and round. The group stands on a type of dais or wall made up of a double line sectioned into squares with dots in each one.
Slightly chipped at the ends; slight fracturing of the surface. The lower end of the seal is marginally narrower; this together with the wider perforation at the top suggests repolishing of part of the surface for secondary engraving.
- Dimensions
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Diameter: 1.50 centimetres (lower end)
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Diameter: 0.30 centimetres (perforation)
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Diameter: 1.55 centimetres (upper end)
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Height: 3.70 centimetres
- Curator's comments
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According to the Collon catalogue "chips in the seal reveal that the colouring of this saronyx seal was artifically induced; its brown colouration is restricted to the surface of an essentially grey matrix. As the intaglio appears to have been executed in two different periods; it seems likely that the seal was worked in grey and white agate during the Neo-Babylonian period. Subsequent to the engraving of the second design in the Achaemenid period, the seal was was probably dyed using a honey solution, so that the induced colouring follows the natural banding of the agate..... The scale, spacing and cutting indicate that the Achaemenid scene was probably added to a pre-existing Babylonian design. It is impossible to establish the length of the chronological gap between the execution of the two scenes since both styles were to some extent concurrent.". The Merrillees catalogue adds "slight fracturing of the seal surface may have caused by the application of heat during this process. Heating may also have intensified the colouring of the white bands." According the Merrillees catalogue "the state of the cylinder and the difference in the size of the two groups probably indicate recutting, but the re-engraving of the new Achaemenid scene placed on a kind of altar platform seems diliberately to link the two scenes, indicating that the seal belongs to the transitional stage c.520 BC. See Porada for a Mesopotamian precedent for ritual and contest scenes together. A baked clay cylinder from Persepolis dated to the late Assyrian period, has a rather crude ritual and contest design showing a seated figure before an altar and, at the side, a combat scene with a lion and another animal. A figure before two altars appears on another late Neo-Assyrian seal. A cylinder seal once in the Caylus collection shows a Persian robed figure in contest with a rampant lion while at the side a figure kneels on a dais before large, cartouche-like signs and other Egyptian hieroglyphs, recalling the kneeling figures on type of cartouches engraved onto the base of the Egyptian Darius statue, found at Susa and dated to after 500 BC. An especially interesting parallel has a ritual scene with two figures in Median dress, one of whom is seated, and between them an incense burner .... with a cock pearched on it; the second scene has a crowned protogonist in contest with human-headed ibexes and the winged symbol above".
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Giovino suggests the seal dates to Dynasty XXVII in Egyptian terms, possibly to the reign of the Achaemenid ruler Darius.
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The seal belongs to the very end of the sixth or the first years of the fifth century BC when both Babylonian and Achaemenid seals were in use.
Cf. L Delaporte, 'Musée du Louvre, Catalogue des cylindres orientaux II. Acquisitions', Paris 1920-1923, p.175, A.786, pl.90:19. C H Gordon, 'Western Asiatic seals in the Walters Art Gallery', London BSAI 1939, 104.
- Bibliographic references
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Merrillees 2005 / Catalogue of the Western Asiatic seals in the British Museum: Pre-Achaemenid and Achaemenid periods (31)
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Collon 2001a / Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum: Cylinder Seals V: Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Periods (393, pl.XXXII)
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Layard A H 1853b / A second series of the monuments of Nineveh; including bas-reliefs from the palace of Sennacherib and bronzes from the ruins of Nimroud, from drawings made on the spot, during a second expedition to Assyria (p.607)
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King 1872 / Antique Gems and Rings (p.131, no.1)
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King 1885 / A handbook of Engraved Gems (p.202, pl.III:4)
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Menant J 1886 / Recherches sur la glyptique orientale II (p.176, pl.IX:3)
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Ohnefalsch-Richter M 1893 / Kypros, die Babel und Homer (pl.XXX:9)
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Pope 1938 / Survey of Persian Art (vol. IV, pl.123c)
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Collon 1987a / First Impressions: Cylinder Seals in the Ancient Near East (418)
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Schmidt EF 1957a / Persepolis II: Contents of the Treasury and Other Discoveries (pp.42, 45, pl.16:PT 791) (cf:)
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Allen 2005a / The Persian Empire: A History (p.125)
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Curtis & Tallis 2005 / Forgotten Empire: The world of Ancient Persia (cat. 208, p. 160)
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2018 May-Sep, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Museum of History, An Age of Luxury
2013 23 Oct - 2014 May, BM, G69a, Zoroastrianism
2006 7 Mar-11 Jun, Barcelona, Fundacion La Caixa, 'L'imperi Oblidat'
2005 Sept-2006 Jan, London, BM, 'Forgotten Empire'
1997 29 May-28 Oct, Germany, Berlin, Vorderasiatisches Museum, Das Siegel Im Alten Vorderasien
- Condition
- Fair / poor; slightly chipped at the ends; slight fracturing of the surface.
- Acquisition date
- 1851
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 89324
- Registration number
- N.1069
