Cylinder Seal

CBS Register. Ur 1928-9, Season VII. Cylinder Seal.lapis. Lions, spotted deer, bearded bull, star, crescent.

UE II: Cylinder seal, lapis-lazuli. The stone is slug on a thin silver wire ring.

This fine example of a six-animal combat scene shows three lions attacking a caprid and a human-headed bull; a second caprid stands rampant to the side. The style of carving of this seal is characteristic of the Royal Cemetery period. The figures are fully modeled, and the manes of the lions are very full, the hair rendered in a flame-like pattern. The heads of the lions are shown from the top, and the human-headed bull turns his heavily bearded face frontally, looking out with wide-open drilled yes. In the field are a seven-petaled rosette or star and a moon crescent with disk. A corroded silver wire still runs through the suspension hole of the seal, indicating that it was once worn suspended, perhaps from its owner’s belt. This private grave included another seal carved in lapis lazuli with an overall lozenge-and-dot pattern as well as silver earrings, a pin, an ax, six vessels of various materials, and a shell lamp.