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.

Female and male sphinx

between 700 B.C. and 501 B.C.
greenish chalcedony ;
Morgan Seal 739
Description
1 cylinder seal : greenish chalcedony ; 23.5 x 11.5 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)... Seals 734-739 show the influence of the modeled style that prevailed in both regions in the latter part of the eighth century B.C."--Porada, CANES, p. 88
Summary
Female and male sphinx, each holding paw over spade on platform between them -- Crescent and star in sky.
Classification
Place
Southern Mesopotamia.
Department