{"title":"Heirloom cylinder seals at Mleiha (Sharjah Emirate, UAE)","authors":"Bruno Overlaet, Sabah Jasim, Eisa Yousif","doi":"10.1111/aae.12233","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Very few cylinder seals are reported from South-East Arabia. This paper reports on two cylinder seals that were found as heirlooms at Mleiha, UAE. The first is a Neo-Assyrian seal with a ritual scene: kneeling worshippers around a tree of life. The second is a seal of local manufacture. The positioning of its image, a human figure holding an Arabian horned viper, is turned 90°, questioning whether it was ever used as a seal or rather worn as an amulet or bead. Local seal production and seal use are discussed. Seals from the Iron Age II suggest that the object is of local production, as does the iconography that can be linked to Iron Age snake cults in South-East Arabia. Comparable snake representations are, however, occasionally still found in the Mleiha/PIR period.</p>","PeriodicalId":8124,"journal":{"name":"Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aae.12233","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ARCHAEOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Very few cylinder seals are reported from South-East Arabia. This paper reports on two cylinder seals that were found as heirlooms at Mleiha, UAE. The first is a Neo-Assyrian seal with a ritual scene: kneeling worshippers around a tree of life. The second is a seal of local manufacture. The positioning of its image, a human figure holding an Arabian horned viper, is turned 90°, questioning whether it was ever used as a seal or rather worn as an amulet or bead. Local seal production and seal use are discussed. Seals from the Iron Age II suggest that the object is of local production, as does the iconography that can be linked to Iron Age snake cults in South-East Arabia. Comparable snake representations are, however, occasionally still found in the Mleiha/PIR period.
期刊介绍:
In recent years the Arabian peninsula has emerged as one of the major new frontiers of archaeological research in the Old World. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy is a forum for the publication of studies in the archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics, and early history of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Both original articles and short communications in English, French, and German are published, ranging in time from prehistory to the Islamic era.