Hero with scimitar attacking bull-horned lion-griffin

between 700 and 550 B.C.
banded agate
25 x 11(12) mm
Morgan Seal 815
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."--Porada, CANES, p. 102
Cylinder chipped and scratched.

Summary: 

Hero with scimitar attacking bull-horned lion-griffin.

Classification: 
Department: