(2) Hemi-cylinders.
The patterns occurring on the hemi-cylinder seals are nearly all geometrical, as shown in figs. 47-57, but the human figure is sometimes represented, as in fig. 34.
Figs. 44, 45 and 46.
Figs. 47, 48 and 49.
Figs. 50 and 51.
Historical importance of button-shaped seals.
The button-shaped seals are of considerable interest to the student of comparative archaeology, and they are certainly not Upper Egyptian in their origin. The earlier forms have, moreover, no affinity to the Mycenaean series of designs, and, as Mr. Petrie[[105]] has remarked, the spirals, butterfly, cuttlefish and other characteristic types are absent. On the other hand, they have several links which connect them to the Greek Island and Cretan class of seals, and also to some found in Italy, from which we may perhaps infer that they are of common origin.[[106]] An almost exact reproduction of some of these steatite buttons in clay actually occurs in the Italian terramare, and in the Ligurian cave deposits of neolithic and æneolithic periods. Mr. A. Evans writes, “The clay stamp from the terramare of Montale in the Modenese, represented in fig. 52, the top of which is now broken, was probably once perforated, is not only analogous in form but bears a simple geometrical design almost identical with that on an early steatite button-seal from Knossos.”[[107]]