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 Ili-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