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.

Weather god and sun disk

between 1894 B.C. and 1595 B.C.
amethyst ;
Morgan Seal 512
Description
1 cylinder seal : amethyst ; 18.5 x 9.5 mm
Provenance
Acquired by Pierpont Morgan sometime between 1885 and 1908.
Notes
"In Old Babylonian representations the weather god, Adad, is usually shown standing on a bull and holding a lightning fork; often he also holds the bull's rein. This portrayal is probably related to the somewhat similar representation in the glyptic of the Assyrian merchant colonies in Anatolia... 509, 510, 512, 514 may be of other than Babylonian origin... Seal 512 has in its inscription a name conforming with names used in Nuzi in northern Mesopotamia... The inscription of this seal not only contains a name that conforms with names found in Nuzi, but also carries over from one line to the next--a feature observed in inscriptions on seal impressions from Nuzi but not in those of Old Babylonian cylinders." Porada, CANES, p. 58-59
Summary
Weather god (bull's rein missing), before him sun disk in crescent above spade -- Terminal: inscription.
Classification
Place
Southern Mesopotamia.
Department