and a probable date range from the ninth to eighth centuries BC(Collon 2001 : 49 – 50 ,
nos. 54 – 65 ).
Seals of the second group, the Neo-Babylonian contest scene (Figure 7. 25 ; cf.
Matthews 1990 , nos. 364 – 5 ), were cut on larger hard-stone seals. They depict a
distinctive hero who holds a sickle-sword in one lowered hand (generally the one
nearest the viewer) and, with the other, grasps the raised foreleg of a rearing beast;
sometimes he places his foot on the back of a small animal between them. Generally
the beast is a lion, but the winged griffin, winged human-headed lion (i.e. a sphinx),
bull and winged bull are also depicted. That this contest scene is Babylonian can be
demonstrated by the concentration of provenanced examples in such sites as Babylon,
Ur and Uruk. Because of Middle Assyrian parallels, it has been suggested that the
Babylonian contest originated in the second millennium, but there is neither the
evidence nor a sufficient number of surviving examples to support such a long floruit
(see Collon 2001 : 154 – 64 , nos. 294 – 305 ). Indeed, a date in the tenth to ninth
centuries seems more probable. Sometimes the Babylonian hero approaches an ostrich
and holds up an object that may be an ostrich egg, possibly a way of hunting the
bird; this form of contest seems to have been most popular in the eighth century and
is also attested on later stamp seals (Figure 7. 26 ; Collon 1998 ). There is a particularly
elaborate example of the Babylonian contest which is inscribed with the name of
Marduk-apla-iddina (the Merodach-Baladan of the Bible) who reigned twice, between
721 and 710 BCand in 703 BC(Figure 7. 27 ). This Babylonian contest survived, or
was revived, in Achaemenid Persian times (e.g. Garrison and Root 2001 , pl. 244 b,
d, g, i, j). Another spectacular seal is a mythical scene showing a god riding on a
bovine monster and aiming an arrow at a leonine monster (Figure 7. 28 ). The motif
was known in Assyria (where the god was Ninurta), but the dynamic movement and
the very fine cutting are characteristic of Babylonian art (where Marduk assumed
Ninurta’s role), and although the inscription mentions a forebear of Merodach-Baladan,
the seal probably also dates to the latter’s reign.
Two particularly fine symmetrical variants of the Babylonian contest seem to have
developed during the eighth century BC, with two heroes, now generally with four
wings of equal length (Figure 7. 29 ), or one four-winged hero between two beasts,
— Babylonian seals —Figure 7. 24 Bird-griffin and winged gazelle. Streaked carnelian.
1. 9 + (bottom end broken) × 0. 75. BM ANE 130620 ( 1928 - 10 - 10 , 902 ).
Excavated at Ur (Collon 2001 , no. 59 ).