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.

Figure standing on crescent

between 600 and 400 B.C.
translucent chalcedony ;
Morgan Seal 811
Description
1 stamp seal : translucent chalcedony ; 24.5 x 18.5 x 14.5 mm
Provenance
Acquired by Pierpont Morgan sometime between 1885 and 1908.
Notes
"...795-811 have been classed as Neo-Babylonian, because many seal impressions of corresponding style and subject have been found on Neo-Babylonian tablets of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. In these impressions a relatively uniform style perists, though the dates of most of the tablets reach well into Persian times (for example, Philadelphia 965-969), and Persian seal impressions also appear on them ... A cross-shaped object topped by a globe occasionall occurs (810, 811); its meaning is not clear ... Occasionally drilled-style stamps portray other subjects, such as a deity in a crescent (811)."--Porada, CANES, p. 96, 99
Conical seal with rounded top and slightly convex oval base.
Summary
Figure standing on crescent; before figure, mace(?); behind figure, cross-shaped object topped by globe.
Classification
Department