The Babylonian World - Historia Antigua

— Babylonian seals —
Figure 7.8 Nude hero fighting bull-man; nude hero fighting lion; naked woman; Ishtar; filling
motifs. Haematite. 2.45 × 1.4. BM ANE 86267 (1899-4-18, 9) (Collon 1986, no. 122; Collon
1993 for possible Sippar provenance).
Finally, a large number of bullae or dockets are known: lumps of clay carefully
shaped around the knots in the strings securing containers and packages, or issued
to hired workers who wore them as entitlement to rations (Weitemeyer et al. 1962:
137–45). These bullae, in a variety of shapes, were sealed and sometimes annotated
in cuneiform. Groups of bullae often provide indications of long-distance trade. For
instance the bullae found at Acemhöyük, in central Turkey, and dating to the early
eighteenth century BC, bore the impressions not only of local seals, but also of seals
naming Aplahanda, king of Carchemish on the border with Syria, Samsi-Addu, king
of Upper Mesopotamia, the sister of Iahdun-Lim, king of Mari on the middle Euphrates,
and even of an Egyptian scarab of a type attested at Megiddo and Jericho in Palestine
(Özgüç 1980).
On the miniature reliefs produced by the impressions of cylinder seals, the head
and legs are shown in profile and the torso, frontally. In low relief it is difficult to
depict a face convincingly without the features – particularly the nose – appearing
as flattened. Nevertheless, certain figures are consistently shown frontally in
Mesopotamian art: the goddess Ishtar, the bull-man, the nude bearded hero (Figure
7.8) and the demon Humbaba (whose head appears on Figure 7.9). Apart from Ishtar
(see below), the others are protective, generally beneficent figures, so that frontality
was probably used to allow the viewer to catch their attention and communicate with
them. The direction of presentation scenes on the impressions (and on sculpture) is
almost always from left to right towards the most important person (king or deity).
These became highly formalised during the Third Dynasty of Ur.
After the fall of Ur in 2004 BC, these designs continued (Collon 1986, pls V–VI),
with a high official being led by the interceding goddess Lama before a seated goddess,
as on the poorer seals of the previous period. The inscription is short, occupying a
101