Galerie Golconda

Bronze cylinder seal with a hole running through its center and engraved all around with a vegetal decoration seemingly composed of trees. The decorative motif is bordered by two lines on the upper and lower parts. Two trees of life are represented back to back with a straight trunk and slanted parallel branches. The trees are connected by a diagonal line.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”.