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Barnebys HQ
Brahegatan 10
BOX 5038
114 37 Stockholm
All auctions / Asian Art / Mesopotamian Cylinder Seal Bead, Scythian Eagle Fob, & Roman Ring (3 Pcs)
Near East, Mesopotamia; Roman, Imperial Period; Eurasian Steppe, Scythian culture. A trio of ancient sealing devices, each solving the same problem of identity in a different idiom. The first is a Mesopotamian greenstone cylinder seal bead, longitudinally pierced for suspension, its surface carved in low relief with an archer drawing his bow upon a short-horned quadruped, a hunt scene rolled out endlessly along wet clay. The second is a Roman brass insignia ring, the flattened bezel retaining the remains of a glass or enamel intaglio in which a figural scene survives only in ghostly outline. The third is a Scythian lead alloy insignia fob, domed and stemmed, engraved with a stylized eagle head, accompanied by a modern impression that renders the raptor legible. Personal seals of this sort authenticated goods, contracts, and correspondence, and doubled as amulets of standing. The cylinder seal is Mesopotamia's signature contribution to the technology of proof: a small stone drum that, rolled across damp clay, produced a continuous frieze no single stamp could match and no forger could easily reproduce. Hunting scenes, with archer and horned prey, belong to a long-lived repertoire in which mastery over wild animals stands in for mastery over the disorderly world beyond the city wall. Scythian metalwork returns again and again to the raptor. Eagle and griffin heads, reduced to a curved beak, a swollen cere, and a great rimmed eye, ornament horse tack, scabbards, and personal fittings from the Black Sea steppe to the Altai, a shorthand vocabulary of predatory power carried across an enormous territory by mounted nomads who left few settlements and a great deal of portable art. Item # 204921
Estimate:$300
To the auctionView all items fromArtemis Fine ArtsorAsian Art
Estimate:
$300
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