Western Asiatic Royal Stamped Terracotta Jar Handle

Broad bowl with carinated inner edge to the and chamfered rim, law basal ring; upper face glazed with floral design picked out in blue and grey, circumferential rings below the rim and panels of radiating stripes and blue glaze. 710 grams, 24.6 cm



S. Morad collection. From the collection of M. Hugues Rosset, Switzerland. Private Swiss collection, acquired from M. Hugues Rosset in 1998.

Cylindrical body topped with a standing quadruped, likely a mouflon, accompanied by a copy of an old scholarly note, typed and signed by W.G. Lambert, late Professor of Assyriology, University of Birmingham, 1970-1993, which states: 'Cylinder Seal of Bronze, surmounted by a Horned Animal Maximum height 42mm., Diameter of seal: 15mm. The animal has big, back-curving horns, and was probably meant as a mouflon sheep. It is decorative, makes an imposing piece of a simple seal shape. The design of the seal is a wavey line creating triangular spaces, which are filed with triangles of a smaller size or arrow-heads. In one case the latter and a v-shaped extra wavey line are used. The date of these ornamented seals has been disputed. Some scholars have put them in the third millennium B.C., some in the first millennium. The seal design is well known for the latter half of the third millennium and the beginning of the second millennium B.C., and the animal gives the impression of being related to such creatures in bronze from third millennium Anatolia. Thus this is a late-third-millennium seal, and is to be placed somewhere in the area from Anatolia to Kurdistan. Its condition is fine, and the metal sculpture is well done.' 25.7 grams, 41 mm



UK private collection, acquired 1990-1993. Accompanied by a copy of a scholarly note, typed and signed by Professor Wilfrid George Lambert in 1990.

Seals were the working signatures of the ancient Near East. Pressed or rolled into wet clay, they secured jars, bags, doors and tablets, and left a distinct impression that identified the owner, authorised a transaction, and showed whether a container had been opened. Stamp seals (pressed once to leave a single emblem) appear from the 7th–4th millennia BC and continue throughout later periods; cylinder seals (rolled to create a repeating frieze) develop in Mesopotamia in the late 4th millennium BC and are used into the 1st millennium BC. Beyond administration, seals were miniature artworks and amulets. Their images—gods and worshippers, royal hunts, banquets, heroes and mythic beasts—broadcast rank, piety and profession, and were believed to protect the owner. Materials range from soft stones to hard chalcedonies, haematite and lapis, worked with drills and abrasives to achieve crisp intaglio cutting. Many were worn on cords or rings and followed their owners through life, sometimes into the grave. Seals matter because they underpin the earliest systems of record-keeping and trade. Impressions on tablets and bullae are primary documents for ancient law, economy and religion; the seals themselves preserve that imagery in the round.

Hollow-formed model bull with funnel between the shoulders, applied ropework halter to the neck (part absent), traces of pigment. 522 grams, 16.5 cm long



Shlomo Moussaieff collection, Herzliya Pituah, Israel. European private collection.