Further, the king can wear either a fringed robe or the flounced robe of divinity. The
earliest instance of the presentation scene with the king dates to the beginning of the
dynasty in the reign of Ur Namma with the seal of Hashamer, governor of Ishkun-Sin
(Collon 1982 : 532 ). The formula was restricted to the high-level administrators who had
been appointed by the king (Franke 1977 ; Winter 1987 ; Mayr and Owen 2004 ).
Usually the inscription ends with the phrase “arad-zu” (or IR 11 ZU) which indicates
that the owner is a member of the royal court and his seal was a token of office (Franke
1977 ). In addition to these official seals is the far rarer “royal gift” or “in-ab-a” seal that
carry long inscriptions in the form of a sentence that specifically state that the seal is a
gift of the king to the owner. These seals are of the highest quality and were limited to
the closest associates of the ruler (Mayr and Owen 2004 ).
Most of the seals of the Ur III period, especially after the reforms of Shulgi, were
inscribed. Seal ownership was apparently open to all who had the means and the need
from the highest-ranking officials to slaves. Apart from the finest seals carved in the
royal court, the imagery is highly uniform, making it impossible to tell from quality
alone the station of the owner. The reuse of seals in the Ur III period was particularly
common. It was not unusual for an individual to have a number of seals throughout
his official career, sometimes a seal would be recut when a promotion or a change in
the sponsoring court figure occurred (Steinkeller 1977 ; Mayr 2002 ).
Following the collapse of the Ur III dynasty, again at the hands of invaders coming
both from the east and the west, seal use continued in the Mesopotamian world of
officialdom and commerce. New imagery and styles of carving continued to be intro-
duced as Mesopotamia began an era of increasing engagement with neighbors to the
north and west through trade and acculturation. Only in the first millennium, when
clay was replaced by papyrus and leather as Aramaic began to dominate in the
administrative domain, did cylinder seals diminish in popularity. Long gone were the
mythological narratives, images of kings, and cosmic contests. The last seals of the
Mesopotamian tradition were stamps engraved with simple devotional imagery.
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cylindres et empreintes antiques découvertes à Suse de 1913 à 1967 .Paris: P. Guethner.
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—— 1980 b. The Mythological Repertory in Cylinder Seals of the Agade Period (c. 2335 – 2155 B.C.).
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Barrelet, M.T. 1970. Etude de glyptique akkadienne: l’imagination figurative et le cycle d’Ea.
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Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 4 ). Berlin: De Gruyter.
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—— 1999. Uruk, Früheste Sieglearollungen. AUWE 24.
Boese, J. 1995. Ausgragunben in Tell Sheikh Hassan I. Vorlaufige Berichte über ide Ausgrabungskampagnen
1984 – 1990 und 1992 – 94. Saarbrucken: Saarbrucker Druckerei und Verlag.
Brandes, M. 1979. Siegelabrollungen aus den archaischen Bauschichten in Uruk-Warka. Freiburger
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–– Holly Pittman ––