Old Babylonian Hematite Cylinder Seal with Inscription and Adoration Scene

Culture: Mesopotamia/Old Babylonian

Period: 1900-1600 B.C.

Material: Hematite

Dimensions: 2 cm high

Price: 1 400 Euro

Ref: 6680

Provenance: From the Austrian collection of Danho Abdul Massich, acquired in 1978 and since then in Austria.

Condition: Intact

Description: Very finely worked Old Babylonian hematite cylinder seal in the linear style with a worship scene. At right stands the female deity wearing a horned crown and holding a crook as a symbol of her power and protective function. She wears a tiered garment (kaunakes) and receives the adorants. The latter, a high-ranking official and probably once the owner of the seal, wears a long wool cloak with horizontal bands and a cap with a thick rim. He crosses his arms humbly in front of his chest. Behind the adorant stands another figure who, based on it's tiered robe and horned crown, is likewise identified as a female deity. She acts as a mediator (“lamma”), leading the supplicant toward the main goddess with raised arms in a gesture of prayer. Between the adorant and goddess sits a small bird, probably a duck, which in Mesopotamia served as a standard weight and here symbolises justice and truth. The scene concludes with a vertical cuneiform inscription naming two deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon: {d}utu (Šamaš/Utu), the sun god of justice and truth, and {d}a-a (Aya/Aia), his consort, goddess of dawn and the first rays of sunlight. Such theophoric names or dedicatory formulae served to invoke divine protection for the seal's owner. For comparisons to the type of Old Babylonian cylinder seals with adoration scenes, see the examples in the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the object numbers 1987.96.5 and 1986.311.38, and in the British Museum with the registration no. 1935,1017.4 und 1825,0503.143.