cylinder seal
- Museum number
- 89643
- Description
-
Black limestone cylinder seal; linear-style antithetical group consisting of a rosette?-tree flanked by indentical rampant bulls or sheep-like animals with a stylised 'sacred' tree behind them; the animals have narrow heads, small ears and full bodies marked by oblique lines on the creature facing right and horizontal lines on the other one, both possibly with curled tails (but these dotted lines also look as though they are part of the branches of the secondary tree). The main (rosette?) tree consists of a central globe surrounded by six similar globes, a slender stem with two pairs of horizontal 'leaves' and a horizontal line with spherical terminals at the base. The second tree, between the backs of the animals, resembles a linear 'Spade of Marduk' with a pair curving lines each side of the triangular shape, slender stem with fan-like projections (which could in fact be the tails of the animals) and a similar base to the first tree. Two small plants are placed beneath the hanging foreleg of each animal. The engraving seems somewhat laboured with very small drill-holes to emphasize the features of the animals and secondary tree, but, apart from the central globe, the globes of the main tree seem to be gouged out; worn.
- Production date
- 9thC BC-8thC BC (perhaps)
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 1.20 centimetres
-
Height: 2.70 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- According to catalogue "this seal may be southern manufacture or inspiration; Layard may well have acquired it in the south, although it looks more like an excavated rather than a purchased piece. However, the tree behind the bulls is most closely pararelleled by the tree in two Iranian seals (BM.139622) and (BM.139974), and the seal may, alternatively, have been manufactured on the borders with Iran, thus explaining the presence of this tree alongside the rosette-tree. The curved tails of the bulls would indicate a first millinium date, perhaps in the ninth or eighth century".
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Fair / poor; worn.
- Acquisition date
- 1845-1851
- Department
- Middle East
- BM/Big number
- 89643
- Registration number
- N.1145