CIRCA 1800-1700 B.C.

The main scene on this seal depicts two standing bull-men holding a standard surmounted by the combined lunar crescent and solar disc between stars, with a small bird to the left. Flanking the shaft of the standard are two ankh signs to the left and two djed pillars to the right. Both bull-men turn their heads frontally, with their squared beards and almost smiling faces closely recalling depictions of the Egyptian god Bes. The secondary scene is in two registers divided by three spiraling circles framed by thin lines. The upper register depicts a composite monster savaging a fallen human. The monster, perhaps a griffin, is shown with a leonine body and bird head, with a long plait extending back from the top of its head. The lower register has a prancing bull above a plant.

In a dated June 1991 report, W.G. Lambert (1926-2011), one of the foremost Assyriologists and a leading scholar of glyptic art, states that the seal presented here is a masterpiece of Syrian seal engraving. The artist combined motifs of foreign inspiration (Egyptian symbols as well as the Bes-like bull-men, Mesopotamian monsters, and the Aegean prancing bull), transforming all into his own unique Syrian style. For related bull-men flanking a standard on a Syrian cylinder seal now in the British Museum, see pp. 113-115, pl. IX.21 in H. Carnegie, Catalogue of the Collection of Antique Gems formed by James, Ninth Earl of Southesk, K.T.