Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Most Mesopotamian cylinder seals form an image using depressions in the cylinder surface (see lead photo above) to make bumps on the impression and are used primarily on wet clay; but some cylinder seals (sometimes called roller stamps) print images using ink or similar using raised areas on the cylinder (such as the San Andrés cylinder seal ...
Cylinder seals appeared first around 3600 BC in southern Mesopotamia and south-western Iran (Middle Uruk Period). They gradually replaced stamp seals, becoming the tool of a rising class of bureaucrats in the early stages of state formation.
Uballissu-Marduk, inscribed ú-ba-lí-su-d AMAR.UTU, meaning “Marduk has kept him alive,” was a Babylonian accountant (niğkas) who rose to the rank of administrator (sanqu) in the Kassite government of Kurigalzu II, ca. 1332-1308 BC short chronology, whose principal sources are his two cylinder seals which detail his religious affiliations and his illustrious genealogy.
A few rare cylinder seals have been found in Indus valley sites, which suggest Mesopotamian influence: they were probably made locally, but they use Mesopotamian motifs. [104] One such cylinder seal, the Kalibangan seal, shows a battle between men in the presence of centaurs. [105] [106] Other seals show processions of animals. [106]
In the course of the Uruk period, cylinder seals (cylinders engraved with a motif which could be rolled over clay in order to impress a symbol in it) were invented and replaced the simple seals. They were used to seal clay envelopes and tablets, and to authenticate objects and goods, because they functioned like a signature for the person who ...
[13]: 212 Uruk was the first civilization to make use of cylinder seals, a practice that would eventually permeate the entirety of the ancient Near East, as well as Bronze Age Greece. [1]: 54 Cylinder seals were used by individuals and were a marker of one's identity as they acted as a signature and were used for officiating documents.
Late uruk/ Jeldet Nasr period cylinder seal (3350-2900 BC). Jemdet Nasr -style Mesopotamian cylinder seal, from Grave 7304 Cemetery 7000 at Naqada , Egypt , Naqada II period. This is an example of early Egypt-Mesopotamia relations .
The Persian-Gulf style of circular stamped rather than rolled seals, also known from Dilmun, that appear at Lothal in Gujarat, India, and Failaka Island , as well as in Mesopotamia, are convincing corroboration of the long-distance sea trade network, which G.L. Possehl has called a "Middle Asian Interaction Sphere". [59]