Contest frieze

between 1894 B.C. and 1595 B.C.
hematite
21 x 11 mm
Morgan Seal 366
Provenance: 
Acquired by Pierpont Morgan sometime between 1885 and 1908.
Notes: 

"... while the arrangement of the Old Babylonian contests is similar to that used in the earlier period, the introduction of new figures, especially in 359-369, indicates that such ontests had acquire new significance. The new figures include a goat seated upright on a knoll and attacked by a lion or lion-griffin or both, and a man on one knee at the mercy of similar assailants... A bull-man with a similar standard occurs in an impression on one of the tablets of the Assyrian merchant colonies in Anatolia... The top of that standard, a disk inclosing a cross, is the typical sun disk of the glyptic found in such impressions (see 844-849 below). The balanced composition of the scene in 366, howver, as well as the fine engraving, has led to the classification of this seal as Old Babylonian." Porada, CANES, p. 44-45

Summary: 

Lion and lion-griffin grappling, fish-monster with bird head between them; bull-man holding standard of cross disk in crescent.

Place: 
Southern Mesopotamia.
Classification: 
Department: