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ROMAN CARNELIAN INTAGLIO.

GRASSHOPPER DRIVING A CHARIOT DRAWN BY TWO BUTTERFLYES.

1st century B.C - 1st century A.D.

14 x 17 x 3 mm

Estimate: 2.000,00/3.000,00 GBP

For a very similar iconography see British Museum, gem n. 2549 inv. 1814,0704.1446 (carnelian set in a gold ring) and nd drawings n. 2010,5006.1094: 2010,5006.1015.

Provenance: U.K private collection from the british art market, 1990s-2000s.

Seal impressions from Ur (Iraq)

ca. 2900-2700 BCE

These clay fragments include the impressions of cylinder seals. They were once pressed around the pegs and locks of storehouses at archaic Ur. The top two sealings represent milking scenes, while the bottom depicts the presentation of offerings to a deity in the entrance of a temple.

Cylinder seal with three male figures directing a plow; a bull is yoked to the plow and driven by a figure with a whip, who gestures up towards three birds in flight; a crescent moon, a scorpion, and a star occupy the upper part of the field.

Shell

Archaeological provenience unknown, dated to the Akkadian period (ca. 2350-2150 BCE)

Cylinder seal depicting the sun-god in a boat and a plowman with a goat

Mesopotamia (Iraq), Early Dynastic I-II period, ca. 2900-2500 BCE

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, DMMA D 054

Stamp seals from Luristan (northwestern Iran)

Chalcolithic period, ca. 5th-4th millennia BCE

Stamp seals were an important administrative tool for the village chiefdom societies of the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Near East. Iranian highland sites from this era show a great diversity of seal imagery. Some of the most striking compositions feature a "shaman" figure with the head of a horned animal holding a snake in each hand.

Agate cylinder seal Neo-Assyrian (729-700 BCE) British Museum (89810)

Cut, drilled and modelled style cylinder seal: made of banded grey and brown agate. On the left are the symbols of the Babylonian gods Nabu (the stylus) and Marduk (the tasselled spade with chevron-decorated handle) standing on altars beneath a winged sun-disc, symbol of the sun god Shamash. In the centre of the scene is a bearded worshipper who wears a robe with a vertical grid pattern on the bodice and a diagonal grid on the fringed skirt, each square being filled with a small dot executed with a tiny drill; over this garment he wears a fringed shawl. He stands facing left, pointing with his raised right hand and extending the other palm upwards. Facing him on either side are two deities, a bearded god on the left and a goddess on the right, both raising their right hands. They are crowned with star-topped, flaring, feathered and horned headdresses with tassels hanging down their backs, and they wear grid-and-drill-hole patterned upper garments and fringed kilts, criss-cross patterned belts and tiered open robes with very fine undulating vertical striations; on their backs they have crossed star-tipped bow-cases and quivers. The god wears a sword and holds a mace with a beaded handle ending in a pomegranate. The goddess holds a beaded circle with star-tipped rays which encircles her. The edges of the cylinder seal are chipped and there is a large chip by the worshippers head; there are also vertical faults in the stone by the spade.