Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Nude male dancer before lion scimitar, and two worshipers facing enthroned deified king or god holding cup

between 2000 B.C. and 1800 B.C.
hematite ;
Morgan Seal 298
Description
1 cylinder seal : hematite ; 15.5 x 8.5 mm
Provenance
Acquired by Pierpont Morgan sometime between 1885 and 1908.
Notes
"Seals 296-305 depict worship of a figure rendered like the deified kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur, with the difference that the figure is now often seated on a temple throne, earlier reserved for gods of the pantheon. Consequently the figure may here represent not a deified king but a major deity ... standards and small, probably apotropaic objects were increasingly used by the seal cutters of this time. Seal 296, for example, shows a lion-club standard; 297 and 298, a standard in the form of a lion scimitar ... A bowlegged dwarf, a common feature in the glyptic of the First Dynasty of Babylon, appears as a full-sized figure in 298 ..."--Porada, CANES, p. 37-38
Summary
"Bowlegged dwarf before lion scimitar -- Two worshipers facing enthroned deified king or god holding cup, crescent before him."--Porada, CANES, p.38
Classification
Place
Southern Mesopotamia.
Department