Lenormant wrote while attending a seance of l’Institut de France.
SOMMERVILLE COLLECTION.
 1403 |  1405 |
 498 | |
 499 | |
 1374 | |
IMPRESSIONS OF BABYLONIAN CYLINDERS.
SOMMERVILLE COLLECTION.
|
ASSYRIAN. 1366 |
|
PERSIAN. 1402 |
|
HITTITE. 1401 |
|
PHŒNICIAN. 495 |
|
CYPRIAN. 1370 |
IMPRESSIONS OF ASSYRIAN, PERSIAN, HITTITE, PHŒNICIAN, AND CYPRIAN CYLINDERS.
“This cylinder which appears to be of serpentine belongs incontestably to the most antique epoch of Chaldean art of the first years of the ancient empire. It is at least contemporaneous with those cylinders bearing the names of the oldest kings of d’Ous and like those of the Dungi.”
Persia and Assyria furnish us also a beautiful series of seals; the earlier conical, then a series of spherical seals, with one side flattened, on which is the design and inscription, and then the later Sassanian, also spherical, yet more flattened on the sides, which are pierced, and whose circumferences are beautifully ornamented.
There exist a large series of subjects adopted by their owners on account of their superstitious belief in their talismanic virtues; and quite a series of rudely-drawn animals emblematic of vigilance, fidelity, courage, strength, etc. Sometimes on seals as well as on cylinders a full-length figure is given in whose costume there is a marked peculiarity of drapery, the folds crossing the form diagonally, like a Burmese Sarong.