art 245
to the king.”188 On these handles, though, the diagrammatic rendering of
the winged sun with upward-curving wing tips links it stylistically to ana-
tolian prototypes, while the motif on the Bar-rakkab seal shows a sun
with feathered wings and tail and two pairs of protuberant strokes with
rounded ends. these connect it to the syrian tradition.189 there are only
a few other inscribed stamp seals that show the samʾal type of sun disk.190
By contrast, the Mesopotamian or assyrian model is seen in the repre-
sentation of the winged sun featuring an anthropomorphic body. Usually
this solar configuration is supported by either two atlantid bull-men or a
single kneeling man.191 a remarkable artwork that is considered to be of
syrian origin is the very finely cut stamp seal with a kneeling man who
holds a samʾal-type winged sun (pl. XXII).192
another motif that deserves special attention in the corpus of aramaic
inscribed seals is that of the roaring striding lion,193 especially since it
recalls the portal lions in cities such as samʾal, hadattu, til Barsib, and
hamath (see sections 2.1.2, 2.3, and 2.4, above). But this motif appears
to be generally characteristic of West semitic glyptic art and draws on
north syrian and assyrian prototypes.194 It is also part of the long tradition
of syrian lion representations from the Bronze and early Iron ages, which
appear in an emblematic and/or protective relationship to the kingship.195
Like the other motifs that are not typically aramaean, it was selected
from the widely available iconographic repertoire that institutions and
subjects used to create powerful images demonstrating status, authority,
and identity.
4.2 Ivoriesthe fact that large quantities of ivory circulated in many cities in syria
as both a raw material and a finished luxury product is indicated by the
assyrian annals that describe ivory as a coveted prize of war and a trib-
ute during the Westward expansion of the assyrian empire. Furthermore,
188 Lemaire 1981 and Buchanan – Moorey 1988: nos. 38–45.
189 parayre 1993: 30f.
190 e.g., avigad 1997: nos. 756, 790, 828.
191 avigad 1997: nos. 782 (without supporting figures), 783, 784 (without supporting
figures), 845, 849; cf. Ornan 1993: 56–60.
192 avigad 1997: no. 763.
193 avigad 1997: nos. 770, 781, 843 (but from Khorsabad), 851.
194 e.g., Lemaire 1990b; Keel – Uehlinger 52001: 214f, and most notably the seal of
“shema, servant of Jeroboam” from Megiddo (avigad 1997: no. 2).
195 Bonatz forthcoming b.