Ancient Western Asian Seals & Tablets

The Morgan's seals collection is one of the most distinguished in the United States and among the best known in the world. Generally only an inch in height, engraved seals are among the smallest objects ever produced by sculptors. They were carved in great detail with simple tools on semiprecious stones. These engraved objects provide a continuous artistic and chronological sequence of more than three thousand years. The seals collection covers all the significant styles of Mesopotamian engraving from the end of the fifth millennium B.C. to the fourth century B.C. as well as most of the styles of other countries of ancient Western Asia. Areas of particular strength include seals of the second millennium B.C. made outside southern Mesopotamia (Cappadocia, Syria, and Mitannia) as well as Old Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian seals. The Middle Assyrian seals are among the finest in any collection.

Pierpont Morgan collected nearly three thousand cuneiform tablets, the bulk of which are now in the Yale Babylonian Collection, which he founded. The Morgan's collection also includes cuneiform tablets and a few outstanding art objects from ancient Western Asia.

Between 1885 and 1908, the American collector William Hayes Ward assembled, probably on Pierpont Morgan's behalf, a collection of 1,157 seals. This became the core of the Morgan's holdings. Two additional major gifts—the collection of Robert F. Kelley, given by his sister Caroline M. Burns in 1977, and that of Jonathan P. Rosen, a study collection, given in 1986—have enhanced the Morgan's holdings in this area.

Ancient Western Asian seals on display in The North Room of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library »

We acknowledge with grateful thanks Jeannette and Jonathan P. Rosen's generous underwriting support for the activities of the Department of Ancient Western Asian Seals and Tablets.

Contest frieze with bull and nude bearded hero; bull-man and lion
Contest frieze with bull-men fighting lions
Contest frieze with feather-crowned hero and bull; nude bearded heros and human-headed bulls
Contest frieze with water buffalo and nude bearded hero; bull-man and lion
Enthroned goddess with mace, worshiper with kid pouring libation on altar, and two female worshipers
Female and male attendants with banqueters
Female worshiper with pail and male worshiper with kid being led by minor god toward sun god with rays
God with mace and sun god with rays ascending between two mountains
Man astride eagle over sheep dogs, shepherds, and ram and sheep
Vegetation god with stalks of grain, god with plow, and god enthroned on heap of grain
Water god with flowing vase, god attacked by lion-headed eagles, and god brandishing mace
Water god, two-faced god, and two minor gods carrying plant and bird-man
Worshiper pouring libation before goddess standing on lion-griffin that draws chariot driven by weather god
Worshiper, nude bearded hero holding gatepost, two-faced god, and enthroned water god
Eagle above undulating crosshatched line
Lion-headed eagle clutching hindquarters of two ibexes
Foundation Figure of a Kneeling God Holding a Peg
Foundation figure of Ur-Namma
Stone Foundation Tablet Sumerian
Worshiper led by minor goddess toward enthroned god