The subjects engraved upon Egyptian cylinder seals.
The subjects engraved upon Egyptian cylinder seals may be grouped into three well defined divisions. Firstly, there is a small class the engraving on which depicts figures of men and animals, sometimes very beautifully executed. Secondly, a much larger class, represented by several hundred specimens, which bear true hieroglyphic inscriptions. Thirdly, a very small class with scroll patterns or other ornamental devices.
I. Figures of men and animals.
The specimens of the first class require to be studied in some detail, for they contain elements which are of great importance to the comparative archaeologist. A typical example is given in fig. 25, and a second will be found in Pl. III, fig. 1. One of the most distinctive features of these seals is the double-forequartered animal, a feature which occurs again on the button-shaped seals[[85]] of the period intervening between the Sixth and the Twelfth Dynasties. This does not appear to be an Upper Egyptian motif, but one common to the Delta and to an early civilization of Western Asia.
Fig. 25.
IMPRESSION FROM A CYLINDER-SEAL IN THE BERLIN MUSEUM.
Another distinctive feature of these early cylinder seals is a curious bow-legged figure of a man, which is found also on the button-shaped seals[[86]] of a later date. “The characteristic form of the lower limbs,” writes Mr. Evans, who was the first to draw attention to this class of seal,[[87]] “shows that we have here to deal with the same grotesque personage who so often makes his appearance in a secondary position in Babylonian cylinders[[88]]” of an extremely archaic type, and Mr. Evans is of opinion that this figure has been taken direct from the early cylinders of Babylon.[[89]] I would suggest, however, that this feature, like that of the double-headed animals, is but another instance of Delta and Western Asian influence. It is not, indeed, improbable that in the cylinders of this class we have relics of a Delta civilization which was distinct from that of Middle and Upper Egypt. In point of date the specimens of this group range from prehistoric times to about the end of the Old Kingdom (circa 2500 B.C.), when they appear to have entirely died out.
Fig. 26.
IMPRESSION FROM A CYLINDER-SEAL IN THE BERLIN MUSEUM.]
II. Hieroglyphic inscriptions.