Mesopotamian Black Stone Cylinder Seal with Cuneiform Text

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.

Restrung designer necklace of three strands connected by a median vertical column; comprising mainly gold tubular beads with ribbing to the outer face, polyhedral carnelian beads, irregular green glass beads, square-section lapis lazuli beads and other types; the lower node a larger polyhedral lapis lazuli bead with a loop of barrel-shaped gold beads and other types. 78 grams, 57 cm



Acquired in the 1980s. Private collection, Switzerland, thence by descent. Private collection, since the late 1990s.

Composed of mixed beads, including a drop-shaped pendant, restrung. 27.9 grams, 33 cm



Ex London, UK, collection, 1990s.