The Sumerian World by Harriet Crawford

Author:Harriet Crawford
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1366584
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Figure 16.11 Modern impression of an Early Dynastic I cylinder seal carved in the Brocade style. From Khafajeh Sin Temple VI (Kh. V 191 Frankfort 1955: 229. Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)

Figure 16.12 Modern impression of an Early Dynastic I cylinder seal carved in the Glazed Steatite style. From Khafajeh Sin Temple IV (Kh. V 369. Frankfort 1955: 142. Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)

While the exact meaning of this grouping is unclear, scholars have used these seals as a material expression of an early trading league that was perhaps organized in the service of the gods (Jacobsen 1937; Matthews 1993; Steinkeller 2002). The tablets impressed with these seals record the delivery and dispersal of luxury foodstuffs and textiles, perhaps designated for the temple of the goddess Inanna. These city seals, together with proto-Elamite seals that also carried short inscriptions, are the first experiments that we see in seals of the combination of images and text in glyptic art. Although we cannot read them, it is interesting that the names of cities, and perhaps individuals, were carried in these earliest seal inscriptions. This relationship of text and image carried on the seals continues to evolve during the third millennium.

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