between 600 and 400 B.C.
yellowish chalcedony ;
Morgan Seal 807
Description
1 stamp seal : yellowish chalcedony ; 19 x 15.5 x 12 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 ... The principal subject of the modeled-style stamps--a worshiper before an altar supporting symbols--is also rendered in a coarse drilled technique (804-809). As in modeled-style stamps, the symbols used include the lamp on its characteristic stand (804), and, most frequently, the spade and stylus, usually placed on an altar (804-808) ... Stars appear more frequently in stamps of drilled (805, 807, 809, 810) than of modeled style."--Porada, CANES, p. 96, 99
Conical seal with rounded top and slightly convex oval base.
Conical seal with rounded top and slightly convex oval base.
Summary
Altar supporting stylus and spade, stand(?) before it -- Worshiper (facing altar) -- Star in sky.
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Classification
Department