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Cylinder Seals Made of Clay*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Lamia al-Gailani Werr
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Extract

“Terracotta …, Amulet in the form of a cylinder seal … This terracotta object is an example of the kind of thing that is so crude that no one wants to publish it, with the incidental result that we probably have a somewhat distorted idea of the average standard of production in some periods; many authentic amulets or seals of this quality have probably been presumed to be fakes.”

Julian Reade's comment defines precisely the opinion held by archaeologists regarding clay seals. It also helps to explain why museums and private collectors have not acquired clay seals which were generally regarded to be, if not crude and insignificant, possible forgeries. The number of clay seals excavated in archaeological sites impels us to examine them more thoroughly than has been the case so far.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 50 , 1988 , pp. 1 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1988

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Footnotes

*

I wish to dedicate this paper to Lady Barbara Mallowan on her 80th birthday. Through the years she has encouraged and guided me in my work on seals. I am grateful to the Iraq Director General of Antiquities for permitting me to publish the seals from the Iraq Museum. My thanks go to the authorities in the Iraq Museum for all their help and particularly Mrs. Rasmiya Rashid. Thanks also to Dr. Dominique Collon for drawing my attention to the seals in the British Museum and for advice and many discussions on the subject.

References

1 Reade, J., A Hoard of Silver Currency from Achaemenid Babylon, Iran 24 (1986), 79–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Roaf, M., Excavations at Tell Mohammed 'Arab in the Eski Mosul Dam Salvage Project, Iraq 46 (1984), Pl. XIIiCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 See note 1, p. 83, no. 41, Pl. IVh.

4 Porada, E., seal no. 15, p. 798, Pl. 181, in Dikaios, P., Enkomi, Excavations 1948–1958 II (Mainz, 1971)Google Scholar.

5 Collon, D., The Alalakh Cylinder Seals, BAR International Series 132 (Oxford, 1982), no. 1Google Scholar.

6 Fujii, H.et al., Preliminary Report on the Excavations at Area A and Area B of 'Usiyeh, Al-Rāfıdān V–VI (1984–1985), p. 134. Fig. 9: 1 and 2Google Scholar.

7 Amiet, P., The Archaic Glyptic at Shahr-i Sokhta (Period I), in Tosi, Maurizio (ed.), Prehistoric Sistan I (Rome, 1983), Pl. LXXXIV, Fig. 3Google Scholar.

8 The nude figure with curly hair is seen in a similar posture on a number of Early Dynastic seals, Amiet, P., La glyptique mésopotamienne archaïque, (Paris, 1980), Pl. 98, nos 1287–95Google Scholar.

9 Frankfort, , OIP LXXII, p. 8Google Scholar.

10 Ibid., nos 545–47; and from Salabikh, Abu, Postgate, N., Iraq 44 (1982), Pl. VaGoogle Scholar.

11 See note 7.

12 Louvre Cyl. I, Pl. 29, no. 4.

13 Legrain, Ur X, no. 162Google Scholar; Postgate, N. & Moon, J., Excavation at Abu Salabikh 1981, Iraq 44 (1982), Pl. VaCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Amiet, Susa, nos 1765, 1768, 1822.

15 A seal from Tello, where the double mace is clearer, may belong to this group, De Genouillac, H., Fouilles de Telloh I (Paris, 1934), Pl. 70: 4cGoogle Scholar.

16 Frankfort, , OIP LXXII, nos 595, 697, 738Google Scholar.

17 Two seals of unknown provenance at the British Museum may belong to this group, Collon, , BM III, nos 635, 637Google Scholar.

18 Collon, , BM III, no. 641 is one of these sealsGoogle Scholar.

19 Porada, E., Corpus of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections I, The Collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library (Washington, 1948), no. 386Google Scholar.

20 Parrot, Tello, no. 287.

21 See note 2.