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A Cylinder Seal from Syria
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
Extract
Sir Leonard Woolley found last year at Al Mina in the surface soil an interesting cylinder seal. It is published, but without comment, in J.H.S. 1938, pl. xv. It is now in the British Museum, numbered 126064 (Plate I, 2).
It is of whitish chalcedony, 1½ inches high. The design, which is marred by a chip in the middle, falls into three parts and represents a scene of worship. In the left of the impression is a large figure of a worshipper; in the centre, a kneeling man upholding a winged deity; and on the right, a shrine before which the other two actions are imagined happening. Above are various divine symbols.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1939
References
page 1 note 1 Cf. the sketched reconstruction of the Ishtar-Temple at Ashur, M.D.O.G. LXIV, 1926, fig. 12Google Scholar.
page 1 note 2 e.g. on the base from Ashur, Schäfer and Andrae, Die Kunst des Alten Orients, pl. 493, and sculptures of Ashurnazirpal.
page 1 note 3 Delaporte, Catalogue des cylindres orientaux …du Louvre.
page 1 note 4 or Enurta, Pering, A.F.O. VIII, 1932–1943 Google Scholar.
page 1 note 5 It occurs as a finial ornament of the tent-poles of Ashurnazirpal, Budge, Sculptures of Ashurnazirpal, pl. XVI, and on sundry seals, e.g. Ward, Seal-cylinders of Western Asia, fig. 766; Delaporte, Catalogue des cylindres orientaux … de la Bibliothèque Nationale, fig. 376.
page 1 note 6 Ward, op. cit., 217, figs. 65s, 656.
page 1 note 7 Von Oppenheim, Der Tell Halaf, pl. 8. 6.
page 1 note 8 Delaporte, op. cit., pl. 97, fig. 24.
page 2 note 1 A. H. Smith, Catalogue of Jewellery in the Department of Greek and Roman.Antiquities, British Museum, pl. XXIII, 1490. So, too, he appears in the field above the figure of the god slaying prisoners on the silver bowl from Dali, and in the lion hunt on the bronze bowl from Nimrud, Layard, , Monuments of Nineveh, II. 68 Google Scholar. On certain other bronze bowls, e.g. those from Praeneste, Gurion, and Dali ( Perrot, and Chipiez, , Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité, III. 97, 771, 789 Google Scholar), a human figure appears with a hawk's head, which possibly may be connected with our image of the bird.
page 2 note 2 The date of these seals may be 6th century B.C.
page 2 note 3 The owl with flail on the coins of Tyre is another puzzle possibly connected with this. The owl with flail does not seem to occur on the Phoenician scarabs and scaraboids; the hawk with flail does. Has an owl been substituted on the coins for the commoner hawk in competition with the owl on the Athenian coins ?