Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Cylinder seal and Imprint II

 


This cylinder presents a scene of animal and human fighting. The design is unusual because if you look at the picture one way you see a nude man holding an antelope on its hind legs in either hand, while if you turn it around you see a naked man and a man with a bull's head and tail standing back to back, each of them attacking a nearing lion.   

Provenance: Mari
Era: Early Bronze Age (about 2600 BC).
Substance: columella and plaster. 
Dimensions: 3 x 1.7 cm (seal) x 12.2 x 4.5 cm (imprint). 
Text: Michel Fortin (p.100). 
Photography: Jacques Lessard
Collection of the National Museum of Damascus







Michel Fortin, Syria, Land of Civilization. Les Éditions de l'Homme, Musée de la Civilisation de Québec 1999.

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