CIRCA 2300-2200 B.C.

Engraved on this impressive seal is a contest scene composed of six figures arranged in two groups, of four and of two. At the center of the larger group is a symmetrical pair of human-headed bulls with long beards, their heads turned back, shown frontally. Grappling with them from the left is the hero Lahmu, also with a long beard and depicted nude but for a broad belt. From the right is a bare-headed hero with a short beard, wearing a knee-length fringed kilt. His head is framed by a star, and there is a triangle behind him. Between the bull-men is a star and a crescent. The smaller group consists of a bull-man grappling with a lion, both shown in profile. The bull-man is bovine below the waist, human above, with bovine horns and ears.

For another Akkadian seal with similar iconography, see no. 400 in B. Buchanan, Early Near Eastern Seals in The Yale Babylonian Collection.