Bull leaping toward spade

ca. 800 B.C.
black serpentine
32 x 12 mm
Morgan Seal 636
Provenance: 
Acquired by Pierpont Morgan sometime between 1885 and 1908.
Notes: 

"In 635 and 636, the principal figure is a bull.... In 636 the bull is leaping toward a spade, the symbol of Marduk, while other symbols are placed in the field. Neither the subject nor the execution is paralleled in other linear-style seals, and the date of 636 therefore remains undetermined. However, it should be noted that the bull's leap toward an object resemble the action portrayed in the Late Kassite seal 590, though the manner of the rendering in 636 is much more schematic."--Porada, CANES, p. 75

Summary: 

Bull leaping toward spade -- In field, fish, cross, scorpion, rhomb, inverted crescent, star.

Place: 
Southern Mesopotamia.
Classification: 
Department: