A BABYLONIAN/ASSYRIAN YELLOW CHALCEDONY CYLINDER SEAL, showing a hero, with a scimitar in his left hand, wrestling with a rampant bull, the hero grasps the bull by its horns and places his right foot on the animal's hind leg, twisting the bull's head and making its forelegs flail, under the bull a diminutive tree and rampant ibex, before them stands a worshipper with left hand raised in supplication, infornt of whom sits a dog (sacred to the healing goddess Gula), a star in the field, minor chips, circa 700 B.C. | Christie's

Lot 276

276

A BABYLONIAN/ASSYRIAN YELLOW CHALCEDONY CYLINDER SEAL, showing a hero, with a scimitar in his left hand, wrestling with a rampant bull, the hero grasps the bull by its horns and places his right foot on the animal's hind leg, twisting the bull's head and making its forelegs flail, under the bull a diminutive tree and rampant ibex, before them stands a worshipper with left hand raised in supplication, infornt of whom sits a dog (sacred to the healing goddess Gula), a star in the field, minor chips, circa 700 B.C.

Details

A BABYLONIAN/ASSYRIAN YELLOW CHALCEDONY CYLINDER SEAL, showing a hero, with a scimitar in his left hand, wrestling with a rampant bull, the hero grasps the bull by its horns and places his right foot on the animal's hind leg, twisting the bull's head and making its forelegs flail, under the bull a diminutive tree and rampant ibex, before them stands a worshipper with left hand raised in supplication, infornt of whom sits a dog (sacred to the healing goddess Gula), a star in the field, minor chips, circa 700 B.C.
3.3cm. high

Provenance

Openot collection

Lot Essay

This cylinder seal is unusual in showing both Babylonian (hero with bull) and Assyrian (suppliant worshipper) iconography

More from Antiquities

View All

View All