Everything about Cylinder Seal totally explained
A
cylinder seal is a cylinder engraved with a 'picture story', used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet
clay. First appearing in the
Near East during the
Uruk period, later versions would employ notations with
Mesopotamian hieroglyphs. In later periods, they were used to notarize or attest to multiple impressions of clay documents.
The seal itself was made from hard stone, glass, or ceramics such as Egyptian
faience. Many varieties of material such as
hematite,
obsidian,
steatite,
amethyst and
carnelian were used to make cylinder seals, but
lapis lazuli was especially popular because of the beauty of the blue stone.
Graves and other sites hoarding precious items such as gold, silver, beads, and gemstones often included one or two cylinder seals, as honorific
grave goods.
While most Mesopotamian cylinder seals form an image through the use of depressions in the cylinder surface (see lead photo above), some cylinder seals print images using raised areas on the cylinder (see San Andrés image below). The former are used primarily on wet clays; the latter, sometimes referred to as
roller stamps, are used to print images on cloth and other similar two dimensional surfaces.
Cylinder seals are a form of
impression seal, a category which includes the
stamp seal and finger ring seal.
Uses
Cylinder seal impressions were made on a variety of surfaces:
- clay tablets
- doors
- storage jars
- bales of commodities
- components of fabricated objects
- amulets
- cloth
Theme-driven, memorial, and commemorative nature
The images depicted on cylinder seals were mostly theme-driven, often sociological or religious. Instead of addressing the authority of the seal, a better study may be of the thematic nature of the seals, since they presented the ideas of the society in pictographic and text form. In a famous cylinder depicting
Darius I: he's aiming his drawn bow at an upright enraged lion impaled by two arrows, while his chariot horse is trampling a deceased lion. The scene is framed between two slim palm trees, a block of cuneiformic text, and above the scene, the
Faravahar symbol of
Ahura Mazda, the god representation of
Zoroastrianism.
Cylinder seals
The reference below, Garbini, covers many of the following categories of cylinder seal.
A categorization of cylinder seals:
Akkadian cylinder seals.
- Akkadian seal, ca. 2300 BC, stone seal w/ modern impression. See National Geographis Ref. The glyptic(the Scenes) shows "God in barge", people, and offerings.
Assyrian cylinder seals.
Egyptian cylinder seals.
Hittite cylinder seals.
- Clay envelope usage, etc; see Kultepe.
Kassite(the Kassites), cylinder seals.
Mittanian cylinder seals.
Old Babylonian cylinder seals.
Persian cylinder seals; see Darius I, Robinson ref.
Proto-Elamite cylinder seals.
Sumerian cylinder seals.
Neo-Sumerian cylinder seals.
- see Ref (Garbini), "Seated God, and Worshippers", Cylinder seal, and a modern Impressin, p. 40, (British Museum, London).
Syrian cylinder seals.Further Information
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