Of the smaller relics of Babylonian and Assyrian antiquity there are
none so numerous or so pregnant with interest as the engraved seals
which kings and commoners of all periods alike possessed. The
universality of their usage in later times is attested by Herodotus (I,
195), who tells us that in his day everyone in Babylonia carried a seal
as well as a walking-stick, while abundant evidence of their general use
in early times is afforded by the vast quantity of seals discovered in
the course of the excavations.
The seal, important as it is in our own day, was an even more
indispensable convenience of civilized society in primitive times, and
was probably one of the first inventions that owed their origins
directly to the mutual recognition of private rights of ownership. The
purpose which it first of all served was of course the same as that
which it serves with us to-day, though the sealing of the mud plaster
covering of a jar of wine, of the string of a registered parcel, or the
flap of a paper envelope, in no way prevents the thief from robbing the
contents in any of these cases, yet it renders it impossible for such a
theft to be perpetrated without detection, detection not indeed
necessarily of the thief, but of the deed itself, and that after all is
the essential preliminary to the successful establishment of any suit at
law. Its use in primitive times was, however, far more extensive, for,
as Newberry well puts it,[130] “what locks and keys are to us, seals
were to the people of the Old World.” If a man left his house for the
day, and no occupant remained to keep watch, he probably secured himself
and his goods so far as possible by sticking plasters of mud on the door
and impressing his seal upon them in such a manner as to make it
impossible to enter the house without breaking the seal; at all events
Dr. Ward informs us[131] that he saw in a Khan at Hillah, near Babylon,
a door of a room containing goods belonging to a merchant who was away
from home, carefully sealed up with pats of clay on which the impress of
the merchant’s seal had been duly fixed, thereby rendering access to the
house dependent on the bursting of the seals, and in the conservative
East the customs of to-day are not merely those of yesterday, but
generally represent the traditional usage of hundreds, sometimes
thousands of years. A few such sealed pats of clay, some of which formed
stoppers of jars, have been found, but the principal object for which
the cylinder-seal was used, was the authentication of deeds, documents
and letters.
[Illustration: FIG. 48.—A, a cylinder-seal, in which the handle has been
preserved.
B, a clay tablet bearing a seal impression.
C, D, illustrate the variation in size exhibited by cylinder-seals.]
The seals employed by the Babylonians and Assyrians differed from those
generally employed elsewhere, in shape as well as in the motifs of the
engravings. They assumed the form of cylinders or rollers, through the
centre of which a single or double piece of wire was inserted, the wire
being generally made of copper, though sometimes of gold and silver,
while later on, iron also occurs. At one end the wire was clamped, while
at the other it was twisted into a loop (cf. Fig. 48, A) through which a
piece of thread or twine was passed by means of which the seal could be
slung round the owner’s neck, or carried on his wrist, the wire at the
same time facilitating the process of rolling the cylinder on the moist
clay.
The tablet (K. 382) seen in Fig. 48, B, is a good example of a clay
tablet bearing the impress of a cylinder-seal. The tablet, which
measures 4-1/8 inches by 2-5/8 inches, contains the terms of a contract.
The impression itself shows us a mythological four-winged being, such as
is seen so often on Assyrian bas-reliefs. In either hand he holds a bird
by the leg. The cylinders by the side of the tablet are reproduced to
actual size; A, C, and D (Brit. Mus. Nos. 89319, 89538, 101974)
illustrate the divergence of size which the Babylonian cylinder-seals
exhibit, (C) being an unusually large specimen, and (D) an exceptionally
small example, the vast majority of seals occupying an intermediate
position between these two extremes; in (A) we have a cylinder in which
the metal handle is still preserved.
The existence of the same kind of seal in Egypt as early as the time of
the first dynasty has been used as an argument in support of the theory
that the primitive civilizations of Egypt and Babylonia were to some
extent interdependent. It is true that cylinder-seals could only be of
use where clay was employed as a writing-material, but there is no
direct evidence that the practice of using clay for either writing or
building purposes was borrowed from Babylonia, while the similarity in
shape of early Babylonian and Egyptian mace-heads is an even more
uncertain argument whereon to base an otherwise unsupported theory.
The materials used in the manufacture of cylinder-seals were many and
various. The earliest known material is shell, but the most frequently
occurring is hæmatite. Among other materials used may be mentioned
serpentine, marble, quartz crystal, chalcedony, carnelian, agate,
jasper, syenite, jade, obsidian, onyx, limestone, schist, mother of
emerald, and amethyst. A few flint cylinders have been recovered, but
this material was evidently but seldom employed, while glass is of even
rarer occurrence, and metal is unknown. The process by which the
required device was engraved upon the cylinder depended upon the
material of which the latter was made. The softer materials employed in
earlier times, such as shell, marble or serpentine, were possibly
engraved with tools made of flint, but the harder stones would require
an implement made of some more stubborn material. Ward is of opinion
that either emery or a certain stone called corundum was used for the
purpose. The latter was employed at a very early period in Egypt and in
later times in Greece. The earliest seals appear to have been entirely
made by hand, the practice of drilling by means of a bowstring not being
introduced till a later period. Within the confines of a single chapter
it will of course be quite impossible to review all the innumerable
types of cylinder-seals used by the Babylonians and Assyrians of
different ages, and we can therefore only single out one or two examples
of some of the more interesting classes as being fairly representative
of the periods to which they belong.
The most ancient seals are generally made of white marble, or shell, and
sometimes also of lapis lazuli and serpentine. It is impossible to
assign a definite or even an approximate date to the vast majority of
cylinder-seals recovered from the ruined mounds of Mesopotamia, as most
of them belonged to individuals otherwise unknown, but fortunately a
number of seals have been brought to light which belong either to kings
or officials whose date can be independently computed, and which
therefore give us an illustration of the proficiency to which the art of
engraving had been brought at the particular period in which the owners
of the seals lived, and a comparison of the style of art exhibited on
the otherwise undateable seals with those whose age has thus been fixed,
makes it possible for us to assign them with some degree of certainty to
the period to which they belong in the history of the art of
seal-engraving.
The interest of these small relics of the past is of course centred in
the scenes depicted, which are very various, and which throw a flood of
light upon the mythology, and elucidate many legendary uncertainties in
the theological and religious conceptions of the Babylonians and
Assyrians. Where a comparison with royal or official cylinder-seals of
certain date is not feasible, the similarity between the style of art
exhibited on the particular seal in question and that to which some
sculptures of ancient patesis or kings conform afford us the necessary
clue, while lastly, when both of these tests fail, if the seal bears an
inscription, the character of the writing often enables us to place it
in its right class.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.]
One of the earliest Babylonian rulers whose seals have been recovered is
Lugal-anda, patesi or priest-king of Lagash, and the immediate
predecessor of Urukagina, the last king of the first dynasty of Lagash.
An impression of one of the seals of Lugal-anda is reproduced in Fig.
49. Part of the seal is divided into two registers, in the uppermost of
which we see the eagle with outspread wings clutching two lions, which
together formed the heraldic arms of the city of Lagash. It is
noticeable that the lions are treated with the same freedom as on the
little block of Dudu (cf. Fig. 27) the contemporary of Entemena, one of
Lugal-anda’s predecessors. Here as in the little block referred to, the
lions are treated in a very spirited manner, and in contrast to earlier
representations of the device, the lions are gnawing at the wings of
their captivator. On the right of the city-arms there is an inscription
written in very archaic characters. In the lower register we have two
human-headed bulls, a stag, a bearded hero resembling Izdubar, or
Gilgamesh as portrayed on other early cylinder-seals, and another figure
who is passing his left arm round the stag’s neck and holding one of the
fore-paws of the stag in his right hand. Unlike the bearded hero, who is
similarly engaged in grasping the fore-paw of one of the human-headed
bulls, he is clean-shaven, while his hair is represented by four
tongue-shaped projections. On the left of the two registers there is the
body and the lower part of the face of a large human-headed bull, while
on the right are two lions, one of whom is seen burying his teeth into
the neck of a composite creature, half man and half beast. It will be at
once obvious that this cylinder-seal of the early Sumerian period,
presupposes an indefinite period of artistic development in the practice
of engraving.
In the very early seals the scene is of course far less composite and
the workmanship infinitely more crude; we frequently find the same
eagle-motif, but the animals which he claws are usually goats, bulls, or
ibexes, as seen in Fig. 50, the lions only being introduced at a later
date. Here we have a very primitive seal in which we see the eagle
grasping two ibexes by the horns, while a hero is grasping the same two
animals by the leg. Hero, eagle and ibexes are represented in a highly
archaic and crude fashion, though in the symmetrically outspread wings
of the eagle we seem to have a foreshadowing of the conventionalism of
later days. The ibexes have their hind quarters raised in the air, while
the eagle grasps them by the horns, the seat of their strength actually
as well as symbolically. The seal itself is both thicker and shorter
than usual, and has only one register.
But the simplicity which usually characterizes the cylinder-seals of the
earliest period sometimes gives place to an altogether overwhelming
complexity, as in the seal represented in Fig. 51. The two registers
into which the field of the cylinder is divided encroach on each other
in so inordinate a manner that it requires a careful inspection to see
that there are two registers. The eagle is the central figure in the
upper register, his claws reaching out on the one hand towards a lion
attacked by a vulture, on the other towards a lion who appears to be
attacking a reversed ibex. Below, a huntsman occupies the commanding
position; he is clad in the short Sumerian skirt, the fringe of which is
archaically represented by a series of tags, which recall the
fragmentary sculptures of the prehistoric period of Lagash (cf. Fig. 25,
C), and he is surrounded by a crowd of lions and antelopes. This seal is
clearly the offspring of a more developed art than that reproduced in
Fig. 50, but this notwithstanding, it is essentially archaic in
character, and belongs to the early Sumerian period.
One of the most popular designs for cylinder seals in early Sumerian
times is that of one or two seated deities, sometimes accompanied by the
eagle. A very archaic example of this class is reproduced in Fig. 52.
The two seated beings are certainly gods, in spite of their being clean
shaven and having the same faintly suggested features as the figure in
the middle. It will be observed that the fringe of the short Sumerian
skirt of one of the deities and also of the worshipper is represented by
a series of pointed tags as in Fig. 51.
[Illustration: FIG. 50. FIG. 51.]
[Illustration: FIG. 52. FIG. 53.]
In Fig. 53 we again have two seated gods, but this time they have a
large bowl between them, from which they seem to be drinking by means of
tubes. They are apparently seated on camp-stools, while before one of
them is a sacred tree. Their dress consists in a long robe, which covers
one arm while leaving the other exposed and free, and reaches down to
the ankle, the bottom of it being decorated with a fringe, and the body
of it by a branch-shaped design.
Sometimes, again, we have a representation of a god seated in a boat as
seen in Fig. 54. It is impossible to say who the god is, though his
divine character is clearly demonstrated by the horned cap. From the
emergence of branches, or what may be flames of fire and streams of
water from his shoulders, it seems a fair assumption on the part of Dr.
Ward that the god is none other than Shamash, the sun-god. The boat is
being propelled through the river or canal by two oarsmen, who, together
with the god, are standing in the boat. The two men have different
head-gears, but all three are clad solely in the old Sumerian skirt.
Reeds to the height of the occupants of the boat are growing in the
water, and a very primitively executed wild-boar is haunting this
quaintly depicted marsh. Both bow and stern of the boat are similarly
shaped, and are curved upwards to a great height. If the god be Shamash,
it seems probable that here, as elsewhere, he is represented as
traversing the heavens in his bark.
Another series of archaic cylinder-seals is concerned with the heroic
feats of Gilgamesh and Ea-bani, two mythological beings whose conquests
over bulls and lions won for them a reputation and a fame which lasted
right down to the latter days of Assyrian history. We have an impression
of one of the most primitive of the Gilgamesh seals in Fig. 55. The hero
stands between two bisons, one of which is being attacked by a lion and
the other by a leopard, while the inhuman and semi-bestial Ea-bani is
attacking the lion from behind. The occurrence of the spotted leopard is
specially noteworthy, as it hardly ever occurs on later cylinders, while
the presence of bisons which only haunt the highlands is an additional
archaic touch, and is a further indication of the antiquity of this
seal, which must have been engraved at a time when the recollection of
his mountain origin was still fresh in the Sumerian’s mind, for in the
later period of Babylonian art, the bison gives place to the
swamp-loving buffalo. All the details of the seal betray the same
primitive characteristics, and, as usual, there is no inscription.
We have already seen one royal seal-impression, and we have in Fig. 56
the seal of a later but far more famous Babylonian king,
Shar-Gâni-sharri, king of Agade. In the reign of Shar-Gâni-sharri and
his son Narâm-Sin, Babylonian art reached her climax,—the crudeness of
the earlier work had passed away, while there is as yet no trace of the
conventionalism of later days, and freedom is the keynote of her
success. The scene is an oft-recurring one: a hero who to all appearance
is Gilgamesh is kneeling on one knee, and holds in his hands a vase,
from the overflowing streams of which the buffalo seeks to quench his
thirst. The seal is engraved with vigour and precision, the boldness of
which is only exceeded by the natural effect produced. Both hero and
animal are treated with a freedom and fidelity seldom if ever surpassed
in Oriental art, while the strength of the picture lies in the artist’s
genius, and is in no way dependent on the subject, which does not lend
itself to anything particularly striking or effective.
[Illustration: FIG. 54. FIG. 55.]
[Illustration: FIG. 56. FIG. 57.]
[Illustration: FIG. 58.]
In Fig. 57 we have the impression of another seal in which Gilgamesh and
Ea-bani are the prominent actors. Ea-bani is engaged with a lion, but
his comrade is fighting with a massive horned-buffalo. This seal belongs
to the time of Shar-Gâni-sharri and Narâm-Sin, kings of Agade, its date
being fixed alike by the style of art and the purport of the brief
inscription, which contains the name of the owner, Bingani-Sharali, king
of Agade and the son of Narâm-Sin. This seal, now in the British Museum,
was discovered at Cyprus.[132] The movements of Gilgamesh and Ea-bani
are portrayed in a life-like manner, though the action of Ea-bani’s left
arm is somewhat awkward and ungraceful. The same may be said of the
overpowered and ill-designed buffalo, and also of the antelope beneath
the inscription, but the lion is decidedly conventional, a fact possibly
due to the ubiquity of his presence on the cylinder-seals and monuments
of the earliest Sumerian times, from which one may perhaps infer that
the perpetual reproduction of the same animal, has in time worn off the
freshness with which the artist at first approached his subject. But the
Gilgamesh seals probably reach their climax in that reproduced in Fig.
58. The hero is engaged in mortal combat with a lion, whom he is
endeavouring to throw. Gilgamesh is represented full-face and with the
various peculiarities which appear to have been proper to his unique
person—the long, curly beard, the equally long hair parted in the centre
with the three characteristic ringlets on either side, and the body
entirely naked but for a narrow girdle. The action is concentrated and
focussed into a point—there are no conflicting persons, animals, or even
objects in the scene to draw away or divide the attention of the
spectator, and the animation with which the subject is treated is ample
justification for the isolated and exclusive position that it here
holds.
[Illustration: FIG. 59.]
Another group of Babylonian seals belonging to different periods show
the dramatic conquest of the deity over the winged dragon. One of the
earliest, best preserved, and most instructive examples of these, is a
shell cylinder preserved in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, also
published by Ward[133] (cf. Fig. 59). The dragon has the wings and hind
part of an eagle, while his fore-legs and head are those of a lion;
between the wings upon his back stands a nude goddess brandishing
lightning in either hand. The dragon is harnessed to a four-wheeled
chariot, the front part of which is higher than the back, while a god of
disproportionate size is driving the chariot and flourishing a whip in
his left hand. The lion-headed dragon is apparently vomiting, and his
action recalls that of one of the expiring lions on the bas-reliefs of
Ashur-bani-pal. It may, however, be meant to represent the ejection of
venom, though if this is the case it has not been very happily
rendered. Before this group of supernaturals, stands the worshipper who
is in the act of presenting an offering of uncertain character upon an
altar.
[Illustration: FIG. 60.]
[Illustration: FIG. 61.]
But sometimes gods and heroes are found side by side on the same seal,
as is the case on the seal reproduced in Fig. 60. The horn-capped and
seated deity is Shamash, the Sun-god, from whose shoulders rays of light
proceed, while from his lap issue streams of living water. The god is
clad in a long mantle hung from the right shoulder, while the left arm
and shoulder are left bare, and he is seated on a three or four-legged
stool. Before him is a crescent, and behind him is a star mounted on a
kind of stand, while in his presence a typical scene is being enacted;
two heroes are laying low a lion—one of them has his left foot on the
lion’s head and is grasping the tail of the upturned beast with his left
hand, while he is about to drive a knife into its rear quarters with his
right. The other hero is holding himself in readiness with a little
hatchet; his head-gear differs from that of his comrade in being spiked,
but in all other respects the two are alike. This seal is made of pink
marble, and is now preserved in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. One
class of deities was intimately associated with the serpent, and a god’s
body is sometimes represented as being formed of a serpent coil, as is
the case in the cylinder-seal reproduced in Fig. 61. The god in this
case is sitting opposite to a goddess who is likewise seated, and holds
a shallow cup in her hand; above her arm is the crescent, and behind her
is the mounted star as in Fig. 60. The star as here represented is
identical with the early Sumerian ideogram and determinative for god,
and, doubtless has that signification here. The goddess has a long robe
reaching down to the ankles, but her left arm and shoulder are free, as
in the case of the god in Fig. 60. Her seat consists in a kind of
camp-stool, a form of support which the genius of the Babylonian seems
to have invented at a very early date. The serpent-bodied and
human-bearded god holds a branch in his hand, the precise significance
of which is not very clear, but the prominent place occupied by the
sacred tree in Babylonian and Assyrian mythology justifies the
assumption that here as elsewhere it has some symbolical meaning. Behind
the god is a five-barred gate, which must be intended to suggest the
difficulty of access to the divine presence, or else the necessity of an
introduction thereto. Unless the gate were opened either by the god
himself, or by some intermediary being of divine or quasi-divine
character, the worshipper was presumably unable to gain admittance.
As we have already seen, the cylinder-seals frequently present us with
the pictorial aspect of a legend already known from the literature. One
of the most famous legends of the Babylonians was that which told of
Etana’s courageous but bootless attempt to ascend to heaven on the wings
of an eagle. Higher and higher soared the eagle, till at last heaven’s
portals were in sight, but the goal, for some reason not indicated, was
never reached, and both Etana and his living aeroplane were dashed to
the ground. We have an illustration of this bold flight on some of the
seal-cylinders in the British Museum, an impression of one of which is
given in Fig. 62. Etana is seated on the eagle, who is bearing his
burden aloft in the sight of an admiring and upward-gazing dog. On the
right a shepherd clad in a long garment—his right shoulder being exposed
as usual—is driving a horned sheep and two goats towards a primitive
looking fence: both Etana and the shepherd wear beards and long hair,
while the latter carries a staff in his left hand. In the background is
a naked but likewise bearded individual, who is seated beside a large
amphora with the contents of which he appears to be entirely
preoccupied; he is presumably performing culinary operations of some
kind.
[Illustration: FIG. 62.]
The scene on other Babylonian seals is that of a god attacking a humanly
conceived enemy; this class comprises cylinder-seals belonging to the
archaic period as well as those of later date. The impression of one
such archaic seal is reproduced in Fig. 63. In the centre we have the
god, mounted on a bull, his left hand raised, his right hand grasping a
weapon or a whip; he is trampling on a prostrate and suppliant foe,
whose figure is sketched in the roughest and crudest conceivable manner.
As Ward says, this seal must date from the time when the horse was
unknown, or at all events not used in battle. On the right side of the
impression, the god is engaged on foot with an enemy who appears to be
armed with a weapon shaped like a boomerang, such as that with which the
god Nin-girsu is armed on the Vulture Stele. The god holds in his right
hand a weapon of uncertain character, while between the two and facing
the god is a diminutive worshipper whose hand is raised—doubtless in
token of submission—towards his divine lord. On the left the god is
stabbing a human-headed bull with a dagger, while from the god’s back,
rays, or what appear to be rays, are emitted.
[Illustration: FIG. 63.]
By the time of Gudea, patesi of Lagash, and Ur-Engur and Dungi, kings of
Ur, we find a marked change in the artistic merits of the
seal-engraver’s products. Speaking generally, they are executed with far
greater care, and with a wealth of precision entirely absent in most of
the earlier intaglios, but what they gain in care and detailed
attention, they lose in the conventionalism to which that care and
attention have given birth. We have here no rough sketch of a born
artist, but the elaborated painting of a copyist. In Fig. 64 we have an
impression of one of Gudea’s cylinder-seals. The god, who is probably
Nin-girsu or Ea,[134] is seated on a box-like throne: he holds a vase in
either hand, from each of which issue two streams which pour their
contents into three vases resting on the ground, these in turn becoming
themselves the generators of living springs of water. Facing the god is
an intermediary deity who is supporting one of the vases with his left
hand, and leading the worshipper, probably Gudea himself, with his
right. From the shoulders of the intermediary emanate two serpents, the
head of the near one exactly resembling the strange reptiles on the vase
of the same patesi (cf. Fig. 90). The identification of the
intermediary deity with Nin-gish-zi-da is rendered highly probable by
Gudea’s allusion to this god in one of his inscriptions, where in his
description of the manner in which he was introduced to his supreme god,
Nin-girsu, he expressly states that “Nin-gish-zi-da, his god, held him by
the hand.”
[Illustration: FIG. 64.]
[Illustration: FIG. 65.]
[Illustration: FIG. 66.]
In Fig. 65 we have a seal-impression of Ur-Engur, king of Ur about 2400
B.C. The scene depicted is a familiar one: an intermediary god is in the
act of introducing a suppliant worshipper to a superior deity seated on
a throne. The enthroned god has a lengthy beard and wears a round hat
somewhat resembling the turban worn by Gudea (cf. Pl. 23). He is resting
one arm on the back of his throne, while his right hand is extended in
apparent invitation to the slowly approaching worshipper. The throne
itself, unlike the box-like seats of earlier days, is provided with a
back, and the back legs are fashioned after the legs of an ox. The
intermediate deities wear the horned cap with which the gods in Gudea’s
time were usually covered, while horns appear to rise also from out of
their heads, the horns oddly enough being identical in shape with those
on the terra-cotta head discovered during the recent excavations in
Babylonia.[135] The seated deity is clad in a long simple garment
reaching down to the feet, his dress being simpler than that of the
attendant deities, or even that of the worshipper himself. The latter
wears a long tunic, and a fringed mantle over his left shoulder. Both of
the intermediaries are likewise apparelled in lengthy garments, which
differ, however, from each other and also from that of the worshipper in
being more elaborately worked, the divine introducer wearing the richer
robe of the two. The inscription refers to Ur-Engur, king of Ur, who may
conceivably be the figure seated on the throne; in support of this
theory, it is worth noting that the kings of this dynasty were often
deified while yet on earth. Ur-Engur was succeeded by Dungi, the
impression of one of whose cylinder-seals is given in Fig. 66. Both of
these seals are preserved in the British Museum. A bearded and
horn-capped god is standing before an altar shaped like a high standing
vase, from which arises a feathered branch which may be intended to
represent the ascending flame, while two long bare stalks with tufted
heads hang over the altar on either side. The god holds in his left hand
a weapon, the upper end of which is provided with a lateral semicircular
handle, similar to that found at Tellô by De Sarzec, and also to that
represented on the stone vase of Gudea (cf. Fig. 90). In his extended
right hand he holds a three-stalked flower, which is an exact replica of
that found in the hands of mythical beings on later Assyrian
bas-reliefs. On the other side of the altar is the suppliant, clad in
the same fringed garment seen in Fig. 65, while his right hand is raised
in adoration. Behind him is another worshipper whose dress resembles
that of the god, and who is similarly crowned with a horned cap, but in
spite of this divine distinction he has both hands raised in worship.
Dungi was succeeded by Bur-Sin, one of whose cylinder-seals is seen in
Fig. 67. The scene varies little from that found on the seals of his
predecessors. A seated god, a worshipper, and another adoring figure
wearing a divine head-gear behind. The god wears a turban as in the
seal of Ur-Engur (cf. Fig. 65); he reposes on a very thickly upholstered
seat, while both his own feet and those of his throne rest on a small
low platform. The worshipper here has his hands clasped in front in much
the same way as Gudea’s hands are, in the statues from Tellô, but the
third figure, whom Ward somewhat humorously describes as a “flounced
goddess,” has both hands raised. An impression of a cylinder-seal of
Gimil-Sin, the successor of Bur-Sin on the throne of Ur, is reproduced
in Fig. 68. The turbaned and long-bearded god is again seated on a
richly upholstered divan, and is elevated on a little platform. He holds
in his right hand a double-handled vase, while his left hand is
concealed in the folds of his flounced robe. The garment of the
intermediary is exactly the same as that of the seated god, but a horned
cap takes the place of the turban. The worshipper behind has one hand
raised like his usher, while the fringed garment hanging from his
shoulder is arranged so as to allow his left leg to be seen. A seal of
Ibi-Sin, the last of the dynasty (cf. Fig. 69) presents the same
subject, while the treatment practically shows no variation. It will
have been noticed that the star and crescent find a place on some of
these cylinders, while from others they are absent,—from which it may
reasonably be inferred that they were mere symbolic accessories, and as
such of no vital importance.
All these seals bear inscriptions in contradistinction to those
belonging to the earlier period, and a considerable part of the field of
the cylinder is occupied with writing instead of scenery. But as time
went on this tendency became more pronounced, and during the Kassite
period, sometimes nearly the whole of the seal is occupied with an
inscription, usually of a religious character. Thus on a cylinder
inscribed with the name of Kurigalzu, the Kassite king of Babylonia
(_circ._ 1400 B.C.) (cf. Fig. 70) the pictorial element is reduced to
one single figure, that of the worshipper.
[Illustration: FIG. 67. FIG. 68.]
[Illustration: FIG. 69. FIG. 70.]
An extremely interesting seal-impression of the Kassite period is
published by Clay in _The Museum Journal_, University of Pennsylvania
(I, 1910, pp. 4-6). It is dated in the fourth year of Nazi-Maruttash,
king of Babylon (_circ._ 1330 B.C.) (cf. Fig. 71). Three bearded men are
engaged in ploughing; one is urging on the two humped oxen who are yoked
to the ploughshare, the second holds the handles, while the third
appears to be pouring grain into a drill attached to the plough.
It has been said that this seal-impression gives us the earliest
representation of the Babylonian plough, but that statement must be
considerably modified in the light of the early seal-impressions given
by Ward (p. 132, Figs. 369, 371, 372). The plough is portrayed on all
these three cylinders, and they all antedate the cylinder-seal of
Nazi-Maruttash (cf. also the votive-tablet from Nippur, Fig. 25, E).
[Illustration: FIG. 71.]
The Neo-Babylonian Empire (625-538 B.C.) inherited the stereotyped
traditions of the long period of Kassite supremacy, and though there was
a certain reaction in favour of the pictorial as against the literary
element in the later cylinder-seals, the style of art remained more or
less unchanged, if not unchangeable. A good example of a Neo-Babylonian
seal-impression is that found on a tablet dated in the 26th year of
Nebuchadnezzar (cf. Fig. 72).[136] The worshipper stands before a
rectangular box which looks like an altar, but which, according to Ward,
is the seat of the gods. It supports two emblems, one a dog and the
other a thunderbolt of the storm-god Adad. The posture, attitude and
general appearance of the worshipper exactly correspond to those found
on the Kassite cylinders of Kurigalzu (cf. Fig. 70), and are a good
illustration of the conventionalism to which later Mesopotamian art
became so hopelessly enslaved.
[Illustration: FIG. 72.]
The cylinder-seal was employed in Assyria from the earliest periods of
her history, and continued to be used right down to the time of the
Persians, who in turn adopted the same kind of seal. A cylinder-seal
belonging to the early Assyrian period, i.e. about 2000 B.C., is shown
in Fig. 73. The workmanship is crude, but in the scene itself we see in
embryo the military exploits of the late Assyrian bas-reliefs. A
warrior, mounted in his two-wheeled war-chariot, is in the act of
dispatching an arrow from his drawn bow; his rival, on foot, is doing
exactly the same, and it appears to be a question as to which of the two
combatants will get his arrow in first. The chariot is drawn by a bull,
an indication that the horse was not as yet used for war purposes, while
the four-spoked wheels are a further archaic touch—the chariot-wheels of
the later Assyrians having eight, twelve, or sometimes sixteen spokes.
The bull, in his mad career, is trampling over a prostrate foe, a scene
which is frequently represented on the bas-reliefs; it is however
interesting to see the symbolical star and crescent of the old
Babylonians reproduced on this early Assyrian seal.
[Illustration: FIG. 73.]
[Illustration: FIG. 74.]
[Illustration: FIG. 75.]
[Illustration: FIG. 76.]
We have already seen the winged-dragon on an archaic Babylonian seal
(cf. Fig. 59), but it was apparently not till the Assyrian era that the
conflict between “Bel and the dragon” was represented in Mesopotamian
art.[137] On an early Assyrian cylinder-seal, now preserved in the
Metropolitan Museum, New York (cf. Fig. 74), we have a primitive picture
of the conquest of Bel-Merodach as the representative and very
incarnation of order, system and method, over the dragon—the
personification of disorder and tumultuous chaos. The god is drawing his
bow—not apparently at a venture, but with the deadly certainty with
which the gods can presumably aim. This notwithstanding, the god has
taken the precaution of carrying a quiver-full of arrows on his back,
while he is further armed with an axe. The winged-dragon of composite
character is reared upon his hind legs, his face turned towards his
omnipotent adversary, as on the famous Marduk and Tiâmat bas-relief. The
god is accompanied by another beast with wings, who is doubtless ready
to come to the assistance of his divine lord when called upon. Behind
the god we see the winged disc, and what appear to be two eyes, while
the crescent of Sin, the moon-god, and the star of Ishtar are engraved
in front. Behind the dragon is a sacred tree, resembling a palm-tree.
The sacred tree played a very important part in Assyrian art, and is one
of the most frequently recurring objects on the palace-wall reliefs. It
is likewise often to be found on Assyrian seals, a good example of which
is afforded by a cylinder-seal in the British Museum reproduced in Fig.
75. The sacred tree in its most conventionalized form occupies the
central part of the picture; on either side stands the king with hand
raised in adoration; his dress—for an Assyrian king—is comparatively
simple, but his head-gear is a replica of the pointed hat so frequently
seen upon the heads of Assyrian kings on the palace wall-reliefs. Above
the sacred tree is the god Ashur with his winged disc, from which two
cords descend which seem to form the outward connecting link between the
god and his worshipper, and recall the rays which emanate from the disc
of Aten, and terminate in hands bearing the Egyptian symbol of life, on
the famous stele of Khuenaten, the so-called “heretic king” of the
eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. Behind the king is the winged eagle-headed
genius so constantly represented on the bas-reliefs. This strange
mythical creature has one hand raised while in the other he carries a
basket of the ordinary Assyrian type.
[Illustration: FIG. 77.]
In a number of seals, one of which is reproduced here (cf. Fig. 76), a
man-fish, or a fish-god, resembling the figure found by Layard in
sculptured relief at Nimrûd (cf. Pl. IV) occupies the most prominent
position. Ashur in his winged disc is again casting the shadow of his
divine protection over the sacred tree; on either side stands the
Dagan-like worshipper with one hand raised and holding a basket in the
other. He is followed by an attendant worshipper, while behind, is a
warlike-looking personage—possibly the god Marduk—who is about to
execute vengeance on an ostrich; with his left hand he firmly grasps the
ostrich’s long neck, and in his right he holds a scimitar with which he
apparently intends to remove the bird’s head.
The seated deity found on Babylonian seals of all periods is also found
on the cylinder-seals of the Assyrians. We have a good specimen of an
Assyrian seal of the kind referred to in Fig. 77. A bearded god is
seated on a chair with a high back such as is never found on Babylonian
cylinders: the legs of the chair are strengthened to support the weighty
person of the divine occupant by means of cross-bars, while the back is
somewhat grotesquely decorated with balls. In front of the god is a
table or stand with double folding legs and covered with a cloth upon
which a shallow bowl and two flat cakes of bread are set; above the
table is a fish—its head turned towards the god. Behind the enthroned
god stands a goddess, from whose body proceed four ray-like projections
which terminate in stars, the general appearance of the projections
being not unlike that of four starry rockets. Before the loaded table
stands the worshipper with one hand raised, while in the field of the
cylinder there is an ibex, an eye-shaped design, seven balls and a
crescent.