When we think of the artistic accomplishments of the Ancient
Near East, it’s the great monumental structures that come to
mind—the ziggurat at Ur, the barrel-vaulted arch at
Ctesiphon, or sprawling temple complexes such as those at
Persepolis and Khorsabad, of which only fragments remain.
Yet there is a body of work that ranks, not just with those,
but with the greatest achievements of all art: Mesopotamian
cylinder seals, simple utilitarian objects whose inscribed
images constitute a narrative art of a power and
sophistication out of all proportion to their diminutive size.
Cylinder seals were produced between about 3500 B.C. and
500 B.C. primarily in the area we now know as Iraq. They
are stone cylinders, rarely more than an inch tall and
one-half inch in diameter—sometimes considerably less—into which has been cut an
intaglio design, more often than not a scene of combat
between men, or some fantastic creature, and animals. When
rolled across soft clay, the image would appear in relief,
quickly forming a repeat pattern if the seal was rolled over
any length. They functioned the way rubber stamps or even
one’s signature does today, authenticating documents and
protecting commercial goods from theft. Thus each image was,
as it had to be, distinctive and unique.

Despite the fact that some of the greatest museums here and
in Europe have extensive collections of seals, they tend to
be known only to specialists. This is not only unfortunate,
it’s surprising, because there is much about them that