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.

Head of nude bearded hero

between 1000 B.C. and 700 B.C.
brown jasper ;
Morgan Seal 687
Description
1 cylinder seal : brown jasper ; 25 x 13 mm
Provenance
Acquired by Pierpont Morgan sometime between 1885 and 1908.
Notes
"The motif of 687, which shows the heads of a bearded hero and of a lion-griffin, may be meant to symbolize a contest between these two mythological characters, as fully rendered in realistic fashion on Middle Assyrian pieces like 596. The detached head of a bearded hero is frequently found in Mitannian seal designs (Nuzi 774-776), though Neo-Assyrian cylinders so far as now known fail to provide a parallel. On the other hand, the head was used in Neo-Assyrian times as a decoration; it appears on the back of a chariot in a scene on one of the bronze bands of the gates of Shalmaneser III."--Porada, CANES, p. 82
Summary
Head of nude bearded hero -- Crescent above spade on stand -- Head of lion-griffin -- Star above lozenge.
Classification
Place
Southern Mesopotamia.
Department