Large Sasanian Banded Agate Stamp Seal

Pillow-shaped with incised grid to the broad faces, dense cuneiform text in the columns with impressed pellet numerals. 236 grams, 89 mm



Private collection, acquired in the late 1980s-early 1990s; thence by descent. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.13179-249318.

Various collections of cuneiform tablets form a corpus of texts mainly of an administrative nature, from the Uruk III and Ur III periods. The proto-cuneiform, as a system of proto-writing, emerged in Mesopotamia ca.3500-3200 BC, during the Uruk period.

Hollow-formed shoe-shaped jug with rolled rim to the ankle, tab with hole for thong and stopper; welt-line to upper face and around sole. 585 grams, 23 cm



Private collection, acquired on the German art market in 1993; thence by descent. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.13226-249313.

These upturned shoes are characteristic of the whole Hittite era. They are attested until the Late Hittite age. This kind of footwear appears later in the Aegean area, probably due to the influence of Anatolian fashion on Bronze Age Greek culture. It may have been the case that the Akkiyawa (Achaeans) living on the western coast of Anatolia adopted such items (as many others) from the Anatolian Indo-Europeans and exported them to the Greek lands, with the first examples attested in Greece only around the 14th century BC.

Carved in the round as a duck with its head laid back along its spine; pierced and inscribed on one flank. 9.30 grams, 27 mm



UK private collection before 2000. Acquired on the UK art market. Private collection, London, UK.