Galerie Golconda

Black stone (hematite) cylinder seal with a hole running through it and engraved all around with linear, geometric and vegetal motifs. Vertical lines divide the zones into sections. It is not easy to differentiate the particular motifs.
The seal was an object of great importance in the societies linked to Mesopotamia. It may have had many uses, either as a signature stamped on administrative documents, as a piece of identity for common individuals or as a ritual offering. Worn as a talisman, it was part of a tiara or became a pendant attached to a string thanks to a central hole. Around the middle of the 2^nd millennium, the use of the dynastic seal began to spread, to such an extent that using the seal of his predecessor was, for a king, equivalent to absorbing the former’s “virtues”. Very fine condition