AN AKKADIAN GREEN JASPER CYLINDER SEAL
PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF DR. VALLO BENJAMIN
AN AKKADIAN GREEN JASPER CYLINDER SEAL

LATE AKKADIAN, CIRCA 2254-2154 B.C.

Details
AN AKKADIAN GREEN JASPER CYLINDER SEAL
LATE AKKADIAN, CIRCA 2254-2154 B.C.
1 3/16 in. (3.1 cm.) long
Provenance
Private Collection, Geneva, acquired by 1988
Antiquities, Sotheby's, New York, 14 December 1993, lot 2.
Dr. Vallo Benjamin (1934-2021), New York, acquired from the above; thence by descent to the current owner.
Literature
G. Bergamini, "Sigilli a stampo e a cilindro mesopotamici di collezione privata," Mesopotamia, vol. 23, 1988, pp. 76-77, no. 24, fig. 24.

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Hannah Fox Solomon
Hannah Fox Solomon Head of Department, Senior Specialist

Lot Essay

This rich green stone is finely carved with addorsed figures holding the hindlegs of inverted animals, including a muscular, nude, bearded hero with a water buffalo and the bull-man with a snarling lion. The torsion of the creatures and the strength of the man/bull-man were indicative of the dynamic style of the Akkadian period, which replaced the earlier conventional form of the Early Dynastic III period. As B. Buchanan explains (p. 145 in Early Near Eastern Seals in the Yale Babylonian Collection), seals with "gods or heroes or bullmen, each opposed by a horned animal or a lion... seem to emphasize the power of individual creatures, stressing their overwhelmingly human aspect even if they were depicted as divine." For a similar example with figures holding animals by their limbs, see no. 417 in Buchanan, op. cit.
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