Cahiers du Centre d’Études Chypriotes 

47 | 2017
Études historiographiques

A new volume of the catalogue of the Western

Asiatic Seals in the British Museum
Robert S. Merrillees

Electronic version
URL: https://journals.openedition.org/cchyp/322
DOI: 10.4000/cchyp.322
ISSN: 2647-7300

Publisher:
Centre d’Études Chypriotes, École française d’Athènes

Printed version
Date of publication: 1 December 2017
Number of pages: 311-322
ISBN: 978-2-7018-0547-4
ISSN: 0761-8271
 

Electronic reference
Robert S. Merrillees, “A new volume of the catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British
Museum”, Cahiers du Centre d’Études Chypriotes [Online], 47 | 2017, Online since 01 May 2022,
connection on 26 May 2022. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/cchyp/322 ; DOI: https://doi.org/
10.4000/cchyp.322

Les Cahiers du Centre d’études chypriotes sont mis à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative
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 Cahiers du Centre d’Études
Chypriotes 47, 2017

VARIA

A NEW VOLUME OF THE CATALOGUE

OF THE WESTERN ASIATIC SEALS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

Robert S. MERRILLEES
Résumé. La publication définitive en 2016 du dernier fascicule du catalogue raisonné des
sceaux-cylindres dans les collections du département du Moyen Orient du British Museum
représente un accomplissement exceptionnel de la part de ses auteurs, Dominique Collon
et feu Edith Porada. Consacré à la glyptique du Proche-Orient du deuxième millénaire
av. J.-C., il comporte un chapitre sur les cylindres attribués à Chypre, dont aucun n’a de
provenance. La mise en ligne sur le site du British Museum des données qui s’y rapportent
permet une corrélation entre les deux sources de renseignements, sans toutefois résoudre,
voire éclairer, l’origine des sceaux prétendument chypriotes.

The appearance of the volume under review 1 brings to a successful conclusion the
major project undertaken by the Department of the Middle East (ME), formerly the
Department of the Ancient Near East (ANE), and before that the Department of Western
Asiatic Antiquities (WA(A)), to publish all the cylinder seals from their own holdings
in the British Museum (BM). The first volume to appear was written by D.J. Wiseman
under the title Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum I. Cylinder
Seals. Uruk – Early Dynastic Periods, and published in 1962. In the preface R.D. Barnett,
Keeper of the Department, explained that rather than await the completion of the whole
catalogue of the glyptic collection in the Department, it had been decided to produce it in
the form of fascicles. Collon points out that this volume did not include all the relevant
seals, with 105 having been left out and at least 32 added since 1962, and expresses
the hope that this catalogue may eventually be re-issued with the omissions and errors
rectified (p. 151 n. 1). The second volume in the series was compiled by Collon herself
under the title, Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum. Cylinder

1. Edith PORADA †, Dominique COLLON, Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British
Museum. Cylinder Seals IV. The Second Millennium BC. Beyond Babylon, The British Museum,
London, 2016, p. i-vii, 1-254. ISBN 978 0 7141 1130 8.
312 CCEC 47, 2017

Seals II. Akkadian – Post Akkadian. Ur III Periods, and published in 1982. She was
also the author of the catalogues, Cylinder Seals III and V,2 which came out in 1986 and
2001 respectively, under the same general heading, and in 2005 Parvine H. Merrillees
produced Cylinder Seals VI devoted to the Pre-Achaemenid and Achaemenid periods.3
Though the Department in which the seals are housed changed its name twice since
1962, the catalogue titles did not. At least ME’s “Big” inventory numbering has remained
continuous, though the same registration number can be held by two or more objects
across the BM’s collections. To differentiate between those objects in the BM with the
same registration number, the relevant Departmental abbreviation is used as a prefix.
Cylinder Seals IV was meant to be written by Edith Porada, who was commissioned to
do it around 1980 but never finished before she died in 1994. By then she had completed
parts of only three chapters. Despite extensive searches no trace could be found of the
rest of her notes, including the whole section on “Cypriot Seals”, though she had already
started illustrating and describing in print some of the “Cypriote” pieces in ME,4 and
Collon had to compile almost all of the incomplete or missing catalogue entries from
scratch. No-one could have been better qualified for the task. Herself a leading expert on
ancient Near Eastern glyptics as well as author of earlier BM catalogues and numerous
other works on seals, she did her doctorate in New York under Porada’s supervision and
retained a lifelong professional and personal relationship with her mentor. This influence
underpins the volume under review, and as a tribute to Porada, the book and all its chapters
are co-authored by her and Collon. The corpus of cylinders recorded has been organised
according to the categories made current by Porada through her authoritative studies over
many decades and adapted for the purpose of this catalogue, namely, Old Assyrian, Classic
Syrian, Kassite, Mitannian, Middle Assyrian, Iranian and Cypriot.5 There is also a chapter
for “Seals Not Otherwise Classified”. Collon does not attempt to explain all the precise
technical and historical implications of these terms but grateful users will need to wrestle
with their practical meaning, especially as few of the cylinders came from controlled
excavations and many have no reliable provenances. The challenges facing researchers
have been nicely set out by Joanna S. Smith in the volume she wrote in and edited on
Script and Seal Use on Cyprus in the Bronze and Iron Ages. 6 The sub-title, “Beyond
Babylon”, of Cylinder Seals IV, which clearly echoes the title of the 2nd millennium B.C.
exhibition held in 2008-2009 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is less
geographical or historical than classificatory in implication as it signifies the omission of
the Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian specimens already published in Cylinder Seals III. 7

2. Collon 1986, 2001.

3. Merrillees 2005.
4. See Porada 1992 and below.
5. See Porada 1980, 1993.
6. Smith 2002b, p. 4-7.
7. Collon 1986.
R.S. MERRILLEES, WESTERN ASIATIC SEALS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 313

This is not the place to trace the evolution of the cylinder seal catalogue project from
its beginning and the improvements which have been made along the way, but Cylinder
Seals IV, the final volume, reflects the latest empirical and scientific refinements that have
been progressively introduced while preserving some of the earlier features. For example,
in the first of the catalogues Wiseman used no prefix for the seals’ inventory numbers,
though they were identified as BM numbers in the “List of Seals by B.M. Numbers”,8 nor
did he include any of their WA(A) registration numbers, but subsequently Collon added
“BM” to the “Big” inventory numbers of those published in Cylinder Seals II and III
before modifying this prefix to “BM WA” in Cylinder Seals V. The inventory numbers
in Parvine H. Merrillees’ catalogue, Cylinder Seals VI, are preceded by “ANE”, whereas
Collon has reverted to the “BM” prefix for the inventory numbers in Cylinder Seals IV.
At the same time, more attention is, quite rightly, given to the sources of acquisition,
admirably set out in the list of “Excavators, collectors and donors”,9 as this is essential
to help pinpoint not only the likely places of discovery, when a reliable provenance is
missing, but also authenticity. Faking has a long and disreputable history in the glyptics
business, as Collon herself candidly admits elsewhere,10 and it requires a full compilation
and assessment of all the pertinent facts, historical, iconographic and technical, to form a
valid and verifiable opinion about the genuineness of an allegedly antique cylinder seal.
It is interesting to note that in the volume under review Porada and Collon have detected
no specimens they consider of uncertain authenticity, unlike, for example, Kenna, who
itemised a number he thought of dubious character in the Cyprus Museum.11
And the most important innovation has been the use of scientific means to analyse and
determine the chemical and geological make-up of the materials used in the manufacture
of these objects. Wiseman’s catalogue contained a pioneering effort to depart from the
time-honoured method of describing material by informed visual guesswork, through
basing the identifications on visual comparisons with a type series prepared by Mr H.
Barker of the BM’s Research Laboratory. However the report promised by Barker on
his X-ray diffraction study of the seals in this volume never appeared. Twenty years
later Collon in Cylinders Seals II included a short report by Mavis Bimson and Margaret
Sax of the BM Research Laboratory on their scientific examination of the materials of
the seals,12 and this practice has continued up to the present. The volume under review
contains another valuable report, this time by Margaret Sax alone from the BM’s renamed
Department of Conservation and Scientific Research, on “The Materials of Cylinder
Seals of the Second Millennium BC” (p. 161-170). In it she has identified and discussed
the materials used for the seals, as well as reviewing the techniques of engraving, but

8. Wiseman 1962, p. xi-xii.

9. Cylinder Seals IV, p. 173-175.
10. Collon 2005a, p. 94-96.
11. Kenna 1972, p. 650 N.B.
12. Collon 1982, p. 12-14.
314 CCEC 47, 2017

stopped short of commenting in detail on their geological sources, to which she devotes
one short general paragraph (p. 170). In this regard it is worth noting that though Sax has
not specified the geographical derivation of the hematite used for making the cylinders
in this catalogue (p. 166, 170), Porada and Collon state, without quoting their authority,
that analysis has shown that the hematite used in the “Cypriote” seals differs from that
used on the Asiatic mainland, and that “all the ‘Cypriot’ seals that have been analysed
in the British Museum differ from those made from the imported hematite used for Old
Babylonian seals, for instance” (p. 141). This, of course, begs the question of where the
material was extracted. In fact the authors’ assertion was based on an unpublished BM
scientific report by M.R. Cowell which claimed that distinct groups of hematite, perhaps
representing distinct sources, may be distinguished through trace elements.13 One of these
groups was possibly derived from two sources and used in North Syria and Mesopotamia
in the early 2nd millennium B.C. and for Cypriote seals in the late 2nd millennium B.C. All
this requires verification.
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of this development for the future
of glyptic studies that have hitherto been dominated by an art historical approach which
has favoured image over substance and allowed factoids to be created about the origins
of individual cylinder seals. This welcome initiative not only led Parvine H. Merrillees
to have the mineralogy of the ancient Near Eastern seals in the National Gallery of
Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, scientifically analysed by Ralph Segnit, who identified
the materials and gave graphs of the results of the X-ray diffraction and energy dispersive
spectrometry,14 but inspired the reviewer, Joyner and Xenophontos to have the materials
of the seals, cylinder and stamp, attributed to Cyprus in the BM’s Department of Greece
and Rome (GR), scientifically examined.15 This work and the BM’s ME Cylinder Seals
I-VI have set an example, and precedent, that all other studies of this kind should emulate.
Nowhere do these findings have more significance than in the case of the cylinder seals
attributed to Cyprus, to which the rest of this review is specifically addressed, as these
were amongst Porada’s favourites.16 As previously mentioned, the assemblage in ME
does not represent the totality of “Cypriote” seals in the BM. There are a substantial
number in GR which have been published separately by V.E.G. Kenna in Corpus of
Cypriote Antiquities 3. Catalogue of the Cypriote Seals of the Bronze Age in the British
Museum,17 supplemented by Joyner et al. 2006. These two works did not include any of
the “Cypriote” cylinder seals in ME (and Cylinder Seals IV) which came into the latter’s
collection, rather than GR, more by chance than design, as part of lots of antiquities
more Near Eastern than Classical in composition. Indeed one cylinder seal of hematite

13. Moorey 1999, p. 84.

14. Merrillees 2001, p. 73-95.
15. Joyner et al. 2006.
16. Cylinder Seals IV, p. 141 n. 1.
17. Kenna 1971.
R.S. MERRILLEES, WESTERN ASIATIC SEALS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 315

(129589; 1945,1013.133), purchased in 1945 with a number of others from the Southesk
Collection (see below), was transferred from WAA to GR the same year because of its
ostensibly Aegean features. Said to be from Golgoi in Cyprus, it appears to have been in
the11th Earl of Southesk’s possession by 1896 and has been omitted from Cylinder Seals
IV and Kenna’s works on Late Cypriote seals in the BM.18
Unlike the terms Assyrian, Kassites and Mitanni, which refer to national entities in
the Bronze Age, and Syrian, which has cultural connotations in this context, Cyprus
denotes only a landmass, that is, the island itself. As such it has no ethnic or political
implications, only geographical. That begs a number of questions. Was a cylinder
attributed to Cyprus necessarily found in the island? In the absence of an authenticated
findspot, even any provenance at all, no answer can be given to this question. Was a seal
assigned this identity made in Cyprus? Since no glyptic or lapidary workshop has so far
been discovered in the island before 1200 B.C.,19 it is impossible to say with any degree
of certainty that cylinder seals were being produced in the Late Cypriote IB – II period,
that is the 15th to 13th centuries B.C. If seals were being manufactured in the island in
the Late Bronze Age, who were the craftsmen, indigenous or foreign? The cylinder was,
after all, a newcomer to the cultural repertory of Cyprus and is most likely to have come
originally from or via Syria, or, as Catling has succinctly if disparagingly put it, “The
normal L.C. cylinder is a lamentable affair of the crudest cutting, deriving ultimately
from Mesopotamian origins...”.20 Given the lack of contemporaneous graphic and textual
data for this kind of industrial activity in the island, we are reduced to speculation about
the origins of the artisans responsible. In the light of these imponderables we are forced
to conclude the use of “Cyprus” or “Cypriote” as a designation is purely stylistic and
applied to a group of seals which allegedly do not fit into the well defined categories of
glyptic production, like Assyrian, Kassite, Mitanni or Syrian, which can be associated
with a polity or cultural zone. While those indisputably foreign made cylinder seals
with Cypro-Minoan inscriptions, like ME 104467; 1912,0228.7 and GR 1897,0401.744
(see below), must have had the characters added later, there is no certainty that even the
putative Cypro-Minoan signs on cylinder seals attributed to Cypriote workshops, like the
exceptional hematite specimen without provenance, first published by Boardman,21 were
engraved at the same time as the rest of the motifs. This not only makes the cylinders
attributed to Cyprus a heterogeneous lot but overlooks the contribution that material,
techniques and chronology can make to determining the place and role of glyptics in Late
Bronze Age Cypriote industry and society.

18. Kenna 1971, 1972; Joyner et al. 2006, p. 139; Arachne Website, University of Köln, individual
object serial number 164889 (accessed on 06/08/2017); BM Website, with bibliography.
19. Merrillees 2006.
20. Catling 1964, p. 47.
21. 1970, pl. 206, p. 106; Olivier, Vandenabeele 2000, p. 214 no. 26; Christie’s Auction Sale
Catalogue “Ancient Jewelry”, 6 December 2007, New York, Lot no. 392.
316 CCEC 47, 2017

Collon does not address these thorny issues, contenting herself with the observation
that “many of the [‘Cypriot’] seals form groups that are distinctive both in style and
subject matter” (p. 141). Despite her debt to Porada’s pioneering work, she does not
use the classification in Porada’s seminal article of 1948 in the American Journal of
Archaeology,22 (though she drew on it in her catalogue of the cylinder seals in the Pierides
Collection, Larnaca),23 the system devised by Kenna in 1972 for the Swedish Cyprus
Expedition or Salje’s stylistic subdivisions.24 In fact Porada wrote in 1992 that she was
going to introduce major changes to her 1948 terminology but decided not to do so because
of the confusion it would cause since the old terminology was in such general use. Instead
she proposed adding new groups with specific names of sites where the best examples
were found, with a view to achieving “an understanding of the nature of Cypriote cylinder
seals beyond the classification of stylistic groups”.25 Several of her illustrations in this
article were taken from the collection of “Cypriote” cylinders in ME. This may have been
one of the reasons she appears to have made little progress in cataloguing the specimens
attributed to Cyprus in this Department. Porada had evidently come to the realisation
that attribution on stylistic grounds alone, without reliable provenance, yielded flawed
historical results. In Cylinder Seals IV Collon has even managed for the most part to
avoid the amorphous stylistic terms of Elaborate, Derivative and Common favoured by
Webb,26 and let the parallels do the analysis for her. However it is evident from the order in
which her catalogue entries are arranged, which follows neither the ME “Big” inventory
numbers nor the WA(A)/ANE/ME registration numbers, that she has generally placed the
cylinders in the Elaborate, Derivative and Common Style sequence (see below), which
happens to co-incide grosso modo with the transition from hematite to chloritite in the
materials used for the seals.
Not a single one of the cylinder seals attributed to Cyprus in Cylinders Seals IV came
from controlled excavations in Cyprus or anywhere else for that matter – the only one
that may have, turned up in Syria! 27 – and none has a verifiable provenance. They are
therefore all stray finds, and have been assigned to the island on purely stylistic criteria
which, being subjective, can lead to differing views about their origins. With a view to
amplifying the information concerning certain of the 23 seals in Porada’s and Collon’s
catalogue and others in ME which have at one time or another been attributed to Cyprus
or associated with Cypriote features, I have drawn on additional databases, including
the outstanding Collection on-line in the BM’s Website under Research (accessed on
04/08/2017). It may come as a surprise to Collon, as it did to the reviewer, that all the

22. Porada 1948.

23. Collon 1990b.
24. Kenna 1972; Salje 1990.
25. Porada 1992, p. 360.
26. 1999, p. 262-283; 2002.
27. 115966; 1922,0511.99 (see below).
R.S. MERRILLEES, WESTERN ASIATIC SEALS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 317

cylinders listed by her can be located on the Internet, entering, without any prefix, in
the Advanced Search Options under the heading Museum Number or Reference, the
ME inventory number or the Departmental registration number, in the format used by
Collon in her catalogue entries and by me in this review. These on-line “cards” have
the added benefit and attraction of allowing the seals and their impressions mostly to be
seen enlarged and in colour. What is immediately revealing is that there are a number
of differences – and discrepancies – between Cylinder Seals IV and the on-line entries,
for example, where the volume often uses the term “acquired”, the BM Website more
factually has “purchased”. For ease of further reference I have arranged the cylinder seals
according to their ME “Big” inventory numbers in ascending numerical order, followed
by their ME registration numbers without prefix.
89122; 1884,0630.1 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 34-35 CLS 10. This hematite cylinder seal was evidently
not acquired directly from W.D. Cutter but, according to the BM Website, was purchased by
Oscar Charles Raphael (1874-1941) from Cutter, and presented by Raphael, a British banker
and collector, especially of Egyptian antiquities (Bierbrier 2012, p. 457), to the BM in 1884.
William Doherty Cutter – or Cutler – (1847-1929) was a British furniture and antiquities dealer
active in Great Russell Street, London, between 1868 and 1886. The cylinder was said to be
from “Cyprus (?)”, but Porada and Collon suggest that “this seems to be a proposed stylistic
attribution rather than a provenance”. They have classified it as a Classic Syrian cylinder seal of
the 18th and 17th centuries B.C.
89312; 1841,0726.115. Kenna assigned to Cyprus a hematite cylinder seal under the number WAA
89312 and classified it as Type VI.3, that is, Cypriote Main Development (Kenna 1972, p. 652).
According to the BM Website, there are two items with the registration number 1841,0726.115,
a Greek coin in the Department of Coins and Medals and an Old Babylonian hematite cylinder
seal in ME which has nothing to do with Cyprus (Cylinder Seals III, p. 181 no. 472.) It seems
most likely that Kenna got the ME inventory number wrong and meant 89313 (see below).
89313; 1877,0612.2 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 142 CYP1. This hematite cylinder seal attributed to
Cyprus is said to have been acquired from Mr Burgoyne, while according to the BM Website, it
was purchased in 1877 from Burgoyne, Burbidges and Co., a British company of manufacturing
chemists in London. In addition to the bibliography given by Porada and Collon, it is mentioned
by Kenna as representative of the main line of development in Cypriote glyptic (Kenna 1972,
p. 629) and illustrated in Porada 1992, p. 379 fig. 13, p. 365, 375, where it is attributed to
Cyprus, and in Collon 1997, Colour Plate I, fourth row, second from right, p. 8, 25, 231 No. 1/23.
It has been assigned by Salje (1990, p. 243, 328) to her Cypriote Group.
89315; 1841,0726.109 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 118-119 MiE47. According to Kiely and Ulrich
(2012, p. 311 n. 32), this Mitannian Elaborate cylinder seal of hematite “registered in 1841
is said to be from Cyprus but this provenance is unverifiable and probably wrong” . The BM
Website gives it two possible provenances, Cyprus and Iraq (South). It was purchased from
Claude Scott Stewart (Cylinder Seals IV, p. 118) or Steuart (BM Website) in 1841. Claude Scott
Stewart is listed as a member of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society around this
time. A Greek silver coin minted in Motya, Sicily, which was also purchased in 1841, has the
same registration number.
89320; 1880,0531.69 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 49 CLS56. Porada and Collon cite Cypriote parallels
for the animal headed figures on this Classic Syrian hematite cylinder seal of the 18th and 17th
centuries B.C., which was acquired in 1880 from the Rev. Greville John Chester (1830-1892),
318 CCEC 47, 2017

British clergyman and collector (Bierbrier 2012, p. 119-120. ). The BM Website describes it as
“Cypriot (?)” and places its place of production in “Asia (?)”.
89336; 1884,0630.4 = Cylinder Seals IV, pp. 37 CLS 18. According to Porada and Collon,
this hematite cylinder seal of the Classic Syrian style of the 18th and 17th centuries B.C. was
“acquired from W. D. Cutter; said to be from ‘Cyprus (?)’ but this seems to be a proposed
stylistic attribution rather than a provenance”.
89338; 1884,0630.5 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 39-40 CLS 26. According to Porada and Collon,
this hematite cylinder seal of the Classic Syrian style of the 18th and 17th centuries B.C. was
“acquired [purchased] from W. D. Cutter; said to be from ‘Cyprus (?)’ but this seems to be a
proposed stylistic attribution rather than a provenance”.
89493; 1877,0612.1 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 146 CYP10. Porada and Collon attribute this chloritite
cylinder seal to Cyprus and state that it was acquired from Mr Burgoyne, while according to
the BM Website, it was purchased in 1877 from Burgoyne, Burbidges and Co., as in the case of
89313; 1877,0612.2.
89508; 1871,0209.1 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 147-148 CYP16. This chloritite cylinder attributed
to Cyprus was purchased from Mr P. Albert of New Oxford Street, London, in 1871, and said to
be from Cyprus. It has also been assigned by Salje (1990, p. 278, 322) to her Cypriote Group.
89512; 1885,0618.64 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 145 CYP7. This hematite cylinder seal attributed to
Cyprus was purchased from the Rev. Greville John Chester in 1885. It has also been assigned to
Cyprus by Porada and Salje (Porada 1987, p. 80 n. 8; Salje 1990, p. 278, 331). The Jemdat Nasr
cylinder seal catalogued by Wiseman in Cylinder Seals I (Wiseman 1962, pl. 9.a, p. 9), under
89512, is a mistake for 89517.
89717; 1983,0101.272 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 146-147 CYP12. According to the BM Website,
this chloritite cylinder seal attributed to Cyprus came from the “old collections, apparently
previously unregistered. Most probably acquired before 1884 from Rassam in Babylonia or
early Assyrian excavations, but possibly of wholly indeterminate origin”. Porada and Collon
state that it was acquired before 1900.
89739; 1983,0101.287 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 147 CYP15. According to the BM Website, this
chloritite cylinder seal attributed to Cyprus came from the same source as 89717; 1983,0101.272.
Porada and Collon state that it was acquired before 1900. It has also been assigned by Salje to
her Cypriote Group (1990, p. 243 [not BM 89735], p. 327).
89740; 1884,1212.3 = Cylinder Seals IV, p.148 CYP18. This chloritite cylinder attributed to
Cyprus was purchased from Rollin and Feuardent in London in 1884 and has also been assigned
by Salje (1990, p. 243, 320) to her Cypriote Group.
89741; 1884,1212.2 = Cylinder Seals IV, p.148 CYP20. This chloritite cylinder was also attributed
to Cyprus and purchased from Rollin and Feuardent in London in 1884. It has also been assigned
by Salje (1990, p. 278, 324) to her Cypriote Group.
89834; 1884,1212.1 = Cylinder Seals IV, p.148 CYP19. This chloritite cylinder attributed
to Cyprus was purchased from Rollin and Feuardent in London in 1884. It is described as
“Cappadocian (?)” on the BM Website but has been assigned by Salje (1990, p. 243, 321) to her
Cypriote Group.
101973; 1905,1111.24. Wiseman (1959, p. 53) identified this hematite cylinder seal as “Cypriot”,
which the BM Website has queried, suggesting that it may have been produced in Asia, but
Salje (1990, p. 243, 308) has put it in her Syrian Group (Salje 1990, p. 243, 308). It is not listed
in Cylinder Seals IV or any of the other Cylinder Seal volumes. It was purchased in 1905 from
Élias Géjou, a French antiquities dealer who was active in Paris between 1894 and 1939.
R.S. MERRILLEES, WESTERN ASIATIC SEALS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 319

104463; 1912,0228.3 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 148 CYP17. This chloritite cylinder seal attributed to
Cyprus was presented in 1912 by Dr Frank Corner, following consideration by the BM Trustees
on 29 November 1911. Salje (1990, p. 244, 288) has assigned it to her North Mesopotamian/
Syrian Group.
104465; 1912,0228.5 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 157 B4. This chloritite cylinder seal was attributed
to Cyprus by Porada (1992, p. 3�� fig. �, p. 363, 3�4) but left unclassified in Cylinder Seals
IV, p. 157 B4. It has been described on the BM Website as Mitannian (late). It was presented in
1912 by Dr Frank Corner, following consideration by the BM Trustees on 29 November 1911.
104467; 1912,0228.7. This reworked Old Babylonian cylinder seal of lapis lazuli has already
been published in Cylinder Seals III, p. 106-107 no. 174,28 but is included here because of its
Cypro-Minoan inscription, which was added later. It was acquired by WAA in 1912 but no
provenance or source has been given. It was not included in the list compiled by Olivier and
Vandenabeele of seals inscribed with the Cypro-Minoan syllabary (Olivier, Vandenabeele 2000,
p. 212-214) but has been illustrated again by Collon (2005a, p. 4� fig. 1, p. 48). There is in the
BM another recut lapis lazuli Old Babylonian cylinder seal engraved with a Cypro-Minoan
inscription (GR 1897,0401.744).29 It came from the BM’s excavations in 1896 at Enkomi Ayios
Iakovos in Cyprus “outside of tombs”.
115966; 1922,0511.99 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 148 CYP21. This chloritite cylinder seal attributed
to Cyprus was said to have been acquired by Sir Leonard Woolley at Geria-t-ibn’Aia near
Manbij/Membidj by the Euphrates in north Syria, while the BM Website states that it was
excavated by him at this site. It was acquired by the BM in 1922 and has also been assigned
by Salje (1990, p. 244, 324) to her Cypriote Group. Another chloritite cylinder seal (115970;
1922,0511.103) Cylinder Seals IV, p. 153 S.8) also came from the same place and source but
like CYP21 is said by the BM Website to have been excavated by Woolley at this site. It has left
been left unclassified by Porada and Collon but attributed to a North Syrian workshop on the
BM Website.
129576; 1945,1013.120 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 143 CYP3. This chloritite cylinder seal attributed
to Cyprus was purchased in 1945 from Charles Alexander Carnegie, 11th Earl of Southesk, and
came originally from the Lawrence-Cesnola Collection (Lot 293 or 299) in 1892. It has also
been illustrated by Porada (1992, p. 380 fig. 24, p. 36�-368, 3�5), who considered it Cypriote.
129590; 1945,1013.134 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 116 MiE37. This hematite cylinder seal, which
has been classified as Mitannian Elaborate in Cylinder Seals IV, p. 116, was independently
reproduced by Porada in the context of her remarks on Cypriote cylinders published in 1992.30
It was purchased from the 11th Earl of Southesk, who obtained it at Sotheby’s sale of collection
of antiquities of R.P. Greg of Coles, Buntingford, Hertfordshire (Lot 27) in 1895. Salje (1990,
p. 244, 315 has assigned it to her Syrian Group.
129591; 1945,1013.135 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 145-146 CYP9. This hematite cylinder seal
attributed to Cyprus was also purchased from the 11th Earl of Southesk, who obtained it from
the Greg Collection (Lot 27) in 1895. It has also been illustrated by Porada, who considered it
Cypriote (Porada 1986, pl. ��.2, p. 296 and 299; Porada 1992, p. 3�8 fig. 10, p. 364, 3�4), and
assigned by Salje (1990, p. 244, 332) to her Cypro-Aegean Group.

28. BM Website, with bibliography; said to be of both lapis lazuli and hematite [sic].
[
29. Olivier, Vandenabeele 2000, p. 213 no. 2; Collon 2005b, p. 72 no. 316, p. 73 no. 316; Joyner
et al. 2006, p. 133, with bibliography; BM Website, with bibliography.
30. Porada 1992, p. 3�8 fig.
fig. 12, p. 364, 3�5 (“29590” is a misprint for “129590”)..
320 CCEC 47, 2017

133026; 1962,1212.1 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 142-143 CYP2. This hematite cylinder seal attributed
to Cyprus was purchased from Spink and Sons Ltd. in 1962. It has also been illustrated by
Porada, who considered it Cypriote,31 and attributed by Salje (1990, p. 278, 329) to her Cypriote
Group.
134771; 1966,0218.32 = Cylinder Seals IV, p. 143-144 CYP4. This hematite cylinder seal attributed
to Cyprus was amongst other items purchased in 1966 from the estate of the late Captain E.G.
Spencer-Churchill (1876-1964; Bierbrier 2012, p. 521). It has also been independently published
by Collon, who described it as typical of the Cypriote Elaborate Style (Collon 1990a, p. 50
fig. 40 ), and illustrated by Porada, who considered it Cypriote.32 The date given it by Collon of
the 14th century B.C. is art historical, since it has no archaeological context or even provenance.

It cannot be said in all honesty that this catalogue strengthens the arguments in a favour
of a Cypriote origin for all the cylinder seals attributed to the island in Cylinder Seals IV
or for that matter any other published work. While no-one disputes the proposition that
the chloritite cylinders of the so-called “Common Style”, here Cylinder Seals IV, p. 147-
149 CYP 16-22, were most probably made in Cyprus, there is less certainty about the
centre(s) of production of the so-called “Derivative” class of seals, to which two hematite
and six chloritite specimens in ME 33 belong. As for the “Elaborate” group, which are
mostly of hematite but also chloritite,34 there are differing opinions about their places
of manufacture, and given the number of parallels cited by Porada and Collon for the
engravings on these seals with ones from Ras Shamra on the north Syrian coast, an Asiatic
mainland source for some or all of them should not be excluded. More research is required
on the materials and techniques with which they were made before definitive conclusions
can be reached. In general the lack of sure provenance and absence of contextual dates
for the so-called Cypriote seals in Cylinder Seals IV render the process of attribution to
the island insecure and should caution researchers against dogmatic assertions based on
art historical grounds alone. That said, we are all deeply in Collon’s debt for the time,
effort and specialised knowledge she has devoted to this substantial work, which is the
culmination of a lifetime’s achievements in glyptic studies and a resource of unlimited
potential for future research.

31. Porada 1992, p. 380 fig.

fig. 22, p. 36�, 3�5 (not 13302.6).
32. 1992, p. 380 fig.
fig. 23, p. 36� (the second fi
fig.
g. 22 should be fi
fig.
g. 23), p. 3�5.
33. Cylinder Seals IV, p. 145-147 CYP 8-15.
34. Cylinder Seals IV, p. 142-145 CYP 1-7.
R.S. MERRILLEES, WESTERN ASIATIC SEALS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
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