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.

Tree approached by griffin

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.
Summary
Tree approached by griffin; above latter, indefinable monster.
Classification
Place
Southern Mesopotamia.
Department