Cylinder Seal

CBS Register: Babylonian seal cylinder, soapstone

PBS XIV: a libation in front of a primitive shrine with a statue of the god inside, and animal emblems outside. The shrine is a door shaped rectangle framed in by a double line. The god is a small indistinct figure standing up in profile with a horned mitre and a flounced robe down to his feet. The animal emblems look like a bird on a pole supported by a crouched horned dragon (?). The worn surface does not allow any sure identification. The very archaic libator has a bird like head in profile, and a short skirt reaching below the knees. He turns upside down a vase, the content of which flows down in three fillets. Later on the libation was poured through the spouting nose of a slender vase, held with one or two hands round the foot, or even round the neck. Only Gilgamesh or some divine attendant is still represented pressing to his breast a round vase from which the liquid fillets overflow on either side. There is moreover a crescent in the field. Cyl. seal. Serpentine, 26 x 12 mm. Shatra, 1891.