CIRCA LATE 3RD-EARLY 2ND MILLENNIUM B.C.

The mace head is decorated with multiple grotesque male heads with protruding eyeballs set in deep sockets, with flared nostrils and framed by wild hair. Similar iconography with variations, such as with horns or snakes emerging from the chin or from the hair, can be seen in many Bronze Age seals from Bactria-Margiana. The depictions are an abbreviated version of an elaborate motif of a horned and winged creature, shown with a human body with arms terminating in snakes or holding snakes. Although the meaning of the snake-holder creature is unclear, the motif may derive from the earliest mythological ideas of mankind as the so-called "Master of animals". For a bronze stamp seal with the anthropomorphised snake-holder creature, as well as a full discussion on the iconography, cf. fig 4. in S. Winkelmann, Some thoughts about the wild haired snake-man on BMAC-seals, Halle, 2016.