between 700 B.C. and 501 B.C.
      
            rock crystal ;
      
            Morgan Seal 740 
      
  Description
              1 cylinder seal : rock crystal ; 16 x 7.5 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)... Seal 740 is included in this group because it shows a tree resembling that in 738. The engraving of this seal, however, is executed with much more care than that of the other seals of the group, and the subject--a griffin with an indefinable animal above it--remains unparalleled."--Porada, CANES, p. 89
Damaged cylinder.
          Damaged cylinder.
Summary
              Tree approached by griffin; above latter, indefinable monster.
          Catalog link
              
          Classification
              
          Place
              Southern Mesopotamia.
          Department
              
          