Cylinder seal from Tell el-Umeiri

by koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer for Avondale College

Australia

A seal was found probably in 1989 on July 20th under supervision of CM in Field F square 7M06(?) made of stone.

It turned out to be a seal.

Umeiri seals published before

Two seals from Tell-el Umeiri have been discussed by Edith Porada and rightly so, since she is the expert on seals.

Her dealing of the two seals in  L. T. Geraty and L. G. Herr, S. LaBianca and R. W. Younker, Madaba Plains Project I  (Berrien Springs, Michigan: Andrews University Press, 1989), 381-384, needs revision. Cylinder Seal no. 49 (Fig. 23.1) is also shown below.

It will be seen that her (Porada) drawing of the seal (49) is not bringing out all the detail that are actually in the seal. Notice that the man is holding a bow in his hand and one can see the string of the bow, but it is not in her drawing of the seal.

Furthermore, what the man is holding in his hand is a musical instrument. It seems similar to tribal instruments that one sometimes find where an empty pumpkin is used for the soundbox and then with an object the strings are striked similar to a modern day violinist. The other detail that is not brought out by Porada, is that leather belt contraption has three divisions not only two. On the headdress there are two V V's not only one in the front. One is on the front and one is on the side.

She seems to correctly suggest that it was a local imitation and adaptation of themes existing elsewhere.

A similar conclusion can be made of the seal mentioned above.

Umeiri seal discussed here from 1989

The seal is a crude copy of what seems to be existing elsewhere.

The closest examples are what we attached as photo Umeiri sealb which is Cypriote art from the 13th century BCE. The man in that example has a hanging arm in front of an ingot/copper. It seems to be a palm tree. It is published by Nougayrol,  Cyl. plate I AH 8 (XXV). Porada called this example a "Lyre player". She published her findings in the Festschrift of H. Goldman.

The other example of photo Umeiri sealc is from the Diyala region dating to the Jemdet-Nasr period. It was published by Borowski, Cylindres plate IX, no. 46 and also in Atlantis 20 (1945): 487 plate 8. One can also see it in J. Wiesner, Atlantisbuch der Kunst (1952): 513. It is an antilope in front of a tree. The style of the tree is very close to the one that was imitated at Umeiri supra. One cannot see the antelope as is visible in this example from the Diyala region.

It is easy to see the seal as a fake but it is probably better to suggest that it is a crude copy by someone who was not too experienced in copying.