Mesopotamian Babylonian cylinder seal in carnelian - 2nd or 1st millennium BC.

Mesopotamian cylinder seal
Rare carved carnelian cylinder seal depicting a hero between two bisons with human heads.
In the center, a bearded man stands upright, looking to the right, wearing a large round hat and a straight, tight-fitting dress that falls to his ankles, leaving his right shoulder uncovered.
Above, a thin upper garment ending in fringes. It has both arms resting against two bisons inclined to the left and right with human heads (Akkadian: kusarikku; Sumerian: GUD.ALIM).
They are in an antithetic position, standing, turning their heads backward, and pressing them with their foreparts, while their faces, bearded in three tiers, are depicted from the side.
Their horns appear from the front; in the open field between the two kusarikku, an eight-pointed star rises above and below an unguentarium.

Reference: For the human-headed bison, see Black, S.J. and Vert, A., Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, Illustrated Dictionary, London, 1992, p.44 (see s.v. bison) and p.48 f. (see s.v. bull-man).

Mesopotamia, 2nd/1st millennium BC.
Length 3.7 cm - diameter 1.1 cm - delivered with a museum-quality imprint.


Provenance: United Kingdom, T.M.L. gallery.
Previous provenance: Canadian private collection of a businessman living in London, obtained through inheritance from his father's collection formed from the late 1960s to the 1980s.

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