Cylindrical seal; Egypt, Hyksos, early 2nd millennium BC.

Cylindrical seal; Egypt, Hyksos, early 2nd millennium BC.
Green steatite
Measurements: 3 x 1 cm.

The cylinder-seals were engraved with motifs depicting 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.