generally rampant but occasionally inverted (Figures 7. 30 and 7. 31 ). It was this design
- the three-figure contest – that was reintroduced into Assyria, after a long absence
(cf. Collon 1987 , no. 288 for a Middle Assyrian prototype), and I have suggested
that Babylonian craftsmen, who had been carried into exile by Tiglath-pileser III in
729 BCand by Sargon II in 710 BC, were responsible for this (Collon 2001 : 165 – 7 ;
Collon 2003 ). With their greater expertise in the cutting of hard stones, these craftsmen
revolutionised Assyrian seal cutting, with the fusion of the two traditions producing
some of the finest glyptic in the 3 , 000 -year history of the cylinder seal (e.g. Collon
2001 , pls XXXVIII and XXXIX top). Babylonian versions can be identified because
of the very fine tools used (Figure 7. 32 ) and the fact that the four wings are of equal
length, whereas in Assyria the lower wings are longer. The same features appear on
scenes showing winged figures flanking a distinctive type of stylised rosette tree
(Figure 7. 33 ). These seals may belong to the seventh century BC, but examples are
difficult to date as there is a dearth of surviving archives.
By the end of the seventh century, however, there seems to have been a decline,
both in seal-cutting techniques and in creative imagination, that extends through-
out the sixth century, long after the fall of Babylon to the Achaemenid king, Cyrus
the Great, in 539 BCand at least until year 22 of Darius I ( 500 BC) (Zettler 1979 ;
Graziani 1989 ). The types used are illustrated by impressions on tablets from a
number of Babylonian administrative archives, several of which have been published.
The principal ones are those of the Egibi family of bankers active in Babylon between
around 585 BCfor about a century (Wunsch 1993 , 1997 – 98 , 2000 a, b), those of the
Ebabbar Temple in Sippar (MacGinnis 1995 ), and those of the Eanna Temple in
— Dominique Collon —Figure 7. 29 Winged heroes with bird and sphinx; filling motif. Grey chalcedony. 3. 6 × 1. 6.
BM ANE 100674 ( 1905 - 10 - 14 , 2 ) (Collon 2001 , no. 327 ).