The Iconography of Cylinder Seals

The essays in the volume study various aspects of the iconography of cylinder seals from the Akkadian period to the Neo-Assyrian period, from Mesopotamia to Hittite Anatolia. The authors deal mostly with concrete cases, including themes such as warfare, the sacred tree, fish and the god Ninurta. An introduction discusses the problems involved in interpreting iconography with few or no texts, and the volume is opened by a memorial of Henri Frankfort, second Director of the Institute, by his successor J. B. Trapp. The illustrations include a wide range of seal impressions.

The book will be of interest to archaeologists and art historians of the ancient Near East, and to comparative iconologists. It was first published in 2006, and quickly sold out (ISBN-10: 0854811354). A limited number of volumes have been reprinted in 2018 for interested specialists (ISBN-13: 978-0-85481-135-9).

Contents

xi         Preface

1          Introduction

6          Memories of Henri Frankfurt
                 by J. B. Trapp

9          The Warburg Institute’s Photographic Collection and the Diversity of Mesopotamian Iconography
                 by Paul Taylor

19         Palaeolithic Iconography on Bronze Age Seals from the Mesopotamian Periphery?
                 by Diana Stein

35         Lugal-ušumgal: an Akkadian Governor and his Two Masters
                 by Candida Felli

51         War and Warfare on Cylinder Seals in the Ancient Near East
                 by Ruth Mayer-Opificius

62         Cylinder and Stamp Seals in the Southern Levant between 1800 and 1500 BC
                 by Othmar Keel

82         The Hittite Royal Cylinder Seal of Tuthaliya IV with Umarmungsszene
                 by Suzanne Herbordt

92         The Seal of Ilī-padâ, Grand Vizier of the Middle Assyrian Empire
                 by F. A. M. Wiggermann

100       The Iconography of Ninurta
                 by Dominique Collon

110       Assyrian Trees as Cultic Objects
                 by Mariana Giovino

126       Neo-Assyrian Seals and Sealings from Aššur
                 by Evelyn Klengel-Brandt

134       The Rôles Played by Fish on Neo-Assyrian Cylinder Seals
                 by Ursula Seidl

143       List of illustrations

166       Photographic acknowledgements

167       Illustrations

241       Index