Cylinder Seal

PBS XIV: Bel-Marduk scimitar in hand fights with a winged sphinx. He has a beard, a fillet bout his hair hanging in a mass behind and a short loin cloth. The sphinx has a woman’s head, with heavy hair, a fillet and no beard. Behind the god there is a curious emblem like a lance point down o a two tiered base. The butt end has a round knob with a streamer. The point seems to taper into an animal’s head with rings above and below. Scepters of that form with round knobs and handles tapering into animals’ heads are represented on a boundary stone of Nabuchadnezzar I, about bc 1125, discovered at Nippur.

Cyl. seal. Sardonyx, 17 ½ x 10 ½ mm. Nippur, 1894 (?)