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.

King with mace(?) attacking ibex

between 700 and 550 B.C.
white chalcedony ;
Morgan Seal 816
Description
1 cylinder seal : white chalcedony ; 21 x 9 mm
Provenance
Acquired by Pierpont Morgan sometime between 1885 and 1908.
Notes
"Seals 815 and 816, though they show marked affinities with Achaemenian cylinders, nevertheless differ from the latter in such a manner as to suggest that they were made before the Achaemenian style was fully developed. In seal 815 the opponent of the typically Achaemenian horned lion-griffin is a bareheaded hero wearing a grament that leaves one kneed bare and curves back like the mantle of the hero in the Neo-Assyrian cylinder 755. In typical Achaemenian seal stones, however, the opponent of monsters is invariably a king, characterized as such by his crown and by his wide, flowing garments draped in folds. In 816, the king is depicted as usual with a crown, but wearing a fringd mantle reminiscent of Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian representations."--Porada, CANES, p. 102
Summary
King with mace(?) attacking ibex -- Behind king, part of second ibex (possibly of later cutting) -- Terminal: inscription in Aramaic.
Classification
Department