between ca. 721 and 705 B.C.
      
            black serpentine ;
      
            Morgan Seal 621 
      
  Description
              1 cylinder seal : black serpentine ; 29.5 x 13 mm
          Provenance
              Acquired by Pierpont Morgan sometime between 1885 and 1908.
          Notes
              "Seals 620-623 each show a standing archer aiming at his quarry. Of these seals only 623, made of burnt clay, can be approximately dated. Its rendering of the archer corresponds with that in Berlin 696, a frit seal dated by Moortgat about 800 B.C.... The modeling apparent in 621 may indicate that it was made far later, in the time of the modeled-style cylinders of the latter part of the eighth century. This may account for the deviation from the usual rendering of the motif: the plant detail is omitted, and the fish between the figures appears no more conspicuously than any other object in the field."--Porada, CANES, p. 73-74
          Summary
              Stag, plunging forward and attacked from rear by archer, fish between them -- Behind archer, three wedges -- In sky, seven globes, star, crescent.
          Catalog link
              
          Classification
              
          Place
              Southern Mesopotamia.
          Department
              
          