Western Asiatic Steatite Seal with Animals

3300-2900 B.C.

2 3/8 in. (38.9 grams, 61 mm).

Rectangular in plan and triangular in section with a median hole, flat face with incuse frieze of ibexes.

Provenance

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

Literature

Cf. a similar procession of Ibexes on a seal from Kish, in Wilson, J.A., Allen, T.G., Ancient Oriental Cylinder and Other Seals, with a description of the collection of Mrs William H. Moore, Chicago, 1940, fig.15.

Footnotes

Some stamp seals from the period of transition between Jemdat Nasr and the Early Dynastic Period of Ur represent animals, and some scholars suggest that they were probably used as pendants or amulets. The animals are somewhat simplified and often reduced to mere lines: a file of animals usually forms the basis of such a pattern.

CONDITION

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LOT 0222