Mesopotamian Archaeology / An introduction to the archaeology of Mesopotamia and Assyria

by Percy S. P. Handcock

The materials used in the manufacture of cylinder-seals were many and various. The earliest known material is shell, but the most frequently occurring is hæmatite. Among other materials used may be mentioned serpentine, marble, quartz crystal, chalcedony, carnelian, agate, jasper, syenite, jade, obsidian, onyx, limestone, schist, mother of emerald, and amethyst. A few flint cylinders have been recovered, but this material was evidently but seldom employed, while glass is of even rarer occurrence, and metal is unknown. The process by which the required device was engraved upon the cylinder depended upon the material of which the latter was made. The softer materials employed in earlier times, such as shell, marble or serpentine, were possibly engraved with tools made of flint, but the harder stones would require an implement made of some more stubborn material. Ward is of opinion that either emery or a certain stone called corundum was used for the purpose. The latter was employed at a very early period in Egypt and in later times in Greece. The earliest seals appear to have been entirely made by hand, the practice of drilling by means of a bowstring not being introduced till a later period. Within the confines of a single chapter it will of course be quite impossible to review all the innumerable types of cylinder-seals used by the Babylonians and Assyrians of different ages, and we can therefore only single out one or two examples of some of the more interesting classes as being fairly representative of the periods to which they belong.

The most ancient seals are generally made of white marble, or shell, and sometimes also of lapis lazuli and serpentine. It is impossible to assign a definite or even an approximate date to the vast majority of cylinder-seals recovered from the ruined mounds of Mesopotamia, as most of them belonged to individuals otherwise unknown, but fortunately a number of seals have been brought to light which belong either to kings or officials whose date can be independently computed, and which therefore give us an illustration of the proficiency to which the art of engraving had been brought at the particular period in which the owners of the seals lived, and a comparison of the style of art exhibited on the otherwise undateable seals with those whose age has thus been fixed, makes it possible for us to assign them with some degree of certainty to the period to which they belong in the history of the art of seal-engraving.

The interest of these small relics of the past is of course centred in the scenes depicted, which are very various, and which throw a flood of light upon the mythology, and elucidate many legendary uncertainties in the theological and religious conceptions of the Babylonians and Assyrians. Where a comparison with royal or official cylinder-seals of certain date is not feasible, the similarity between the style of art exhibited on the particular seal in question and that to which some sculptures of ancient patesis or kings conform afford us the necessary clue, while lastly, when both of these tests fail, if the seal bears an inscription, the character of the writing often enables us to place it in its right class.

Fig. 49.

One of the earliest Babylonian rulers whose seals have been recovered is Lugal-anda, patesi or priest-king of Lagash, and the immediate predecessor of Urukagina, the last king of the first dynasty of Lagash. An impression of one of the seals of Lugal-anda is reproduced in Fig. [49]. Part of the seal is divided into two registers, in the uppermost of which we see the eagle with outspread wings clutching two lions, which together formed the heraldic arms of the city of Lagash. It is noticeable that the lions are treated with the same freedom as on the little block of Dudu (cf. Fig. [27]) the contemporary of Entemena, one of Lugal-anda’s predecessors. Here as in the little block referred to, the lions are treated in a very spirited manner, and in contrast to earlier representations of the device, the lions are gnawing at the wings of their captivator. On the right of the city-arms there is an inscription written in very archaic characters. In the lower register we have two human-headed bulls, a stag, a bearded hero resembling Izdubar, or Gilgamesh as portrayed on other early cylinder-seals, and another figure who is passing his left arm round the stag’s neck and holding one of the fore-paws of the stag in his right hand. Unlike the bearded hero, who is similarly engaged in grasping the fore-paw of one of the human-headed bulls, he is clean-shaven, while his hair is represented by four tongue-shaped projections. On the left of the two registers there is the body and the lower part of the face of a large human-headed bull, while on the right are two lions, one of whom is seen burying his teeth into the neck of a composite creature, half man and half beast. It will be at once obvious that this cylinder-seal of the early Sumerian period, presupposes an indefinite period of artistic development in the practice of engraving.

In the very early seals the scene is of course far less composite and the workmanship infinitely more crude; we frequently find the same eagle-motif, but the animals which he claws are usually goats, bulls, or ibexes, as seen in Fig. [50], the lions only being introduced at a later date. Here we have a very primitive seal in which we see the eagle grasping two ibexes by the horns, while a hero is grasping the same two animals by the leg. Hero, eagle and ibexes are represented in a highly archaic and crude fashion, though in the symmetrically outspread wings of the eagle we seem to have a foreshadowing of the conventionalism of later days. The ibexes have their hind quarters raised in the air, while the eagle grasps them by the horns, the seat of their strength actually as well as symbolically. The seal itself is both thicker and shorter than usual, and has only one register.

But the simplicity which usually characterizes the cylinder-seals of the earliest period sometimes gives place to an altogether overwhelming complexity, as in the seal represented in Fig. [51]. The two registers into which the field of the cylinder is divided encroach on each other in so inordinate a manner that it requires a careful inspection to see that there are two registers. The eagle is the central figure in the upper register, his claws reaching out on the one hand towards a lion attacked by a vulture, on the other towards a lion who appears to be attacking a reversed ibex. Below, a huntsman occupies the commanding position; he is clad in the short Sumerian skirt, the fringe of which is archaically represented by a series of tags, which recall the fragmentary sculptures of the prehistoric period of Lagash (cf. Fig. [25], C), and he is surrounded by a crowd of lions and antelopes. This seal is clearly the offspring of a more developed art than that reproduced in Fig. [50], but this notwithstanding, it is essentially archaic in character, and belongs to the early Sumerian period.