Cylinder Seal

Two registers. Upper: Gilgamesh, 2 antelopes, 2 lions, hunter and goat. Lower: Enkidu, goat, lion, hunter, lions, etc

CBS Register. Ur 1928-9, Season VII. Cylinder Seal. lapis. Gilgamesh. 2 Antelopes. 2 lions. Hunter and Goat. Enkidu, goat, lion. || Hunter, lions, goats.

UE II: Cylinder seal, lapis-lazuli..

This double-register lapis lazuli seal was found in a simple inhumation of a single deceased wrapped in matting. It lay in front of the face, close to a copper pin with a lapis lazuli head. Each of the registers carries two separate combat compositions. Across the top, two groups of five combatants engage in battle. The larger struggles are arranged around a hero with upward-pointing curls who protects rampant caprids attacked by felines. The scenes are staggered so that there is an unbroken band of violence between the two registers. Unlike in earlier combat scenes, here the bodies of the struggling figures do not overlap, indicating that this seal belongs to the Early Dynastic IIIB period, just following the Royal Cemetery period. It is close in composition to the seal of Barnamtara, the wife of Lugalbanda, found at Ur in SIS-1.

Woolley reported that this greave intruded into the “Great Death Pit” of PG 1237, strengthening the idea that its somewhat later than the royal tombs. Another lapis lazuli seal found in the grave attached by a silver wire to a silver bracelet is engraved with interlocking lozenges.