Circular seal; Assyria, 7th century B.C.

Circular seal; Assyria, 7th century BC.
Jasper.
Measurements: 3,5 x 6,5 cm.
Carved jasper seal with a scene depicting a falconer on horseback. The seal-cylinders were engraved with motifs representing the gods or containing the symbols of power. The images depicted on the cylinder seals were mainly based on themes, often sociological or religious. Thus presenting ideas of society in pictographic and textual form. They served, almost always, to print these motifs on clay, but they are also found on royal tombs.
These graphic motifs are presented on the stamp recessed so that they can be stamped on the clay by rolling the cylinder, for which a ring, a shaft or a cord crossing its axis, trepanned, was used.