Uruk (Ehrenberg 1999 ). However, sealed documents are in a minority, accounting
for only two per cent at Uruk. The main subject on the cylinder seals was the figure
of a priest before a series of altars bearing divine symbols (Figure 7. 34 ). Stamp seals
were also popular, particularly tall, so-called pyramidal or ellipsoid seals generally
showing a priest with a single altar; impressed examples at Uruk are generally of
good quality, but surviving examples are often highly schematised (Figure 7. 35 ; cf.
Ehrenberg 1999 , nos. 45 and 49 ). Babylonian three-figure contest scenes either
continued to be produced or were reused, and some appear alongside the Achaemenid
three-figure contests in the Fortification archive in Persepolis (Garrison and Root
2001 , e.g. pl. 176 and note that the wings are of equal length in the Babylonian
manner). Actual examples of all these seals are generally made of chalcedony.
BABYLONIAN SEALS FROM 500 TO 200 BCAfter the death of Darius I in 486 BC, the Achaemenid administration seems to have
abandoned cuneiform writing on clay tablets for the recording of its transactions, and
switched to documents written on parchment or papyrus, secured with sealed clay
bullae. The latter survive but the documents they sealed have long vanished, and
with them the evidence of content and date. However, the famous Murashu family
of bankers, who were active in the city of Nippur, south of Baghdad, in the reigns
of Artaxerxes I and Darius II ( 464 – 405 BC), still used clay tablets for their transactions.
Although some of their seals were Babylonian, of the types known in the sixth century,
their documents were primarily sealed with Achaemenid stamp seals, and some Greek
seal ring impressions appear (Legrain 1925 : 45 – 8 , nos. 801 – 1001 ; Bregstein 1993 ,
1996 ; Donbaz and Stolper 1997 ). Few metal seal rings have survived as they have
— Dominique Collon —Figure 7. 36 Enlarged ancient impressions, made by
two Babylonian seals (cf. Figures 7. 27 and 7. 34 ), from a grave excavated at Ur
(Collon 1996 , Fig. 1 e and g; BM ANE 1932 - 10 - 8 , 318 and 196 ).