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.

Kneeling archer attacking griffin

between 900 B.C. and 701 B.C.
milky chalcedony ;
Morgan Seal 725
Description
1 cylinder seal : milky chalcedony ; 35 x 16 mm
Provenance
Acquired by Pierpont Morgan sometime between 1885 and 1908.
Notes
"Most of the seals of this style [cut-style]... date from the first millennium. They can be divided into an earlier group, dated approximately in the ninth or eighth century B.C. (724-733), and a later, belonging probably to the seventh and sixth centuries (734-746)... Certain deviations from Assyrian linear-style representations, however, indicate that the early cut-style seals were made not by Assyrian but by Babylonain engravers. In 725, the archer wears a horned miter; in linear-style seals, on the other hand, this figure is bareheaded."--Porada, CANES, p. 88
Summary
Archer on one knee, attacking griffin that stands over plant -- In field, rhomb, two pairs of wedges, fish -- In sky, winged sun disk, seven globes, crescent, star.
Classification
Place
Southern Mesopotamia.
Department