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An Old Babylonian Cylinder Seal from Daskyleion in Northwestern Anatolia

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An Old Babylonian Cylinder Seal from Daskyleion in Northwestern Anatolia ANES 42 (2005) 299-311 An Old Babylonian Cylinder Seal from Daskyleion in northwestern Anatolia Serap YAYLALI Adnan Menderes Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Arkeoloji Bölümü 09010 Aydın TURKEY Fax: +90 256 2135379 E-mail: [email protected] Abstract This essay describes an Old Babylonian cylinder seal recovered coincidentally from a Byzantine deposit at the site of Daskyleion in northwestern Anatolia. The fi gurative scene and the cuneiform inscription carved on this seal is described in detail to place this artifact in its cultural and temporal context. This seal dating to a period between the late nineteenth and early eighteenth century B.C. depicts a protector goddess/Lama in a position paying respect to the god Adad. The rea- sons for the arrival of this seal in such a distant location far from its homeland is also evaluated in relation to the events that occurred between Anatolian and Mesopotamian cultures. It is proposed that this seal was a heirloom from the previous millennium that was brought to Daskyleion during the establishment of the Persian Satrapy at the site. Daskyleion, identifi ed with the city mound called Hisartepe on the southeastern of the Lake Manyas/Ku≥ (Daskylitis) near Ergili to the 30 km south of the town of Bandırma, in northwestern Turkey (Fig. 1), was the residence of the Persian satrap of the Hellespont and Phrygia. Archaeological excavations carried out in 1988 in the Byzantine deposits at Daskyleion surprisingly yielded two cylinder seals. One of them is Old Babylonian in date, whereas the other one is Neo-Babylonian in date.1 The Old Babylonian 1 Bakır 1991, p. 78; Bakır 1995, p. 271; Bakır 2001, p. 175–176. 300 S. YAYLALI Fig. 1 Anatolia showing the location of Daskyleion one (Fig. 2), which is made from hematite, is signifi cant because of the fi gurative scene and the cuneiform inscription it bears.2 The Old Babylonian cylinder seal forms the basis of this essay,3 whereas the second cylinder seal of Neo-Babylonian date will not be evaluated here. The Old Babylonian seal from Daskyleion is examined here in terms of style of its fi gures, followed by the critical assessment of the translation of the cuneiform inscribed it bears. Then, a relative dating is offered for this cylinder seal by using archaeological evidence and historical references. The results of the examination of this seal from Daskyleion will indicate that it could be dated to the late nineteenth and early eighteen century B.C. It was probably an heirloom that remained down until to the fi rst half of the fi rst millennium B.C., which was then brought to Daskyleion by the Persians, for whom the site served as a satrapy for centuries. The lack of archaeological evidence dating to the second millennium B.C. at the site of Daskyleion and its vicinity prevented me going far in establishing a cultural link between northwestern Anatolia and the Old Babylonian sites in the southern Mesopotamia. This is not a surprise in view of the fact that this area was outside the orbit of the Assyrian traders as the present status of evidence 2 This seal is currently kept in the Bursa Museum. Its museum inventory number is 9117 and excavation inventory number is Dask. 88–11. It measures 2.5 cm in height and 1.3 cm in diameter. 3 I would like to thank Tomris Bakır, the excavator of Daskyleion, for offering me to study this cylinder seal from the site and to Aliye Öztan for sharing her thoughts on this distinctive artifact. AN OLD BABYLONIAN CYLINDER SEAL FROM DASKYLEION 301 indicates. However, this seal highlights the importance of the issue of culture contact related to the movements of small portable artifacts far from their homelands and makes is necessary to carry out investigations towards long distance exchange and interregional culture contact. A detailed description of this cylinder seal may help us to obtain the chronological and cultural affi liation of this artifact. The scene depicted on this cylinder seal from Daskyleion is composed of a male human fi gure standing on a bull on the right and a second female human fi gure facing this group on the left. It must be mentioned that the human fi gure depicted in a worshipping position on the left of the scene is larger in size than the one depicted on a bull. The fi gure standing on a bull could be a god as this motif was a common theme in the Near Eastern iconography. Although the head of this fi gure standing on the bull is hard to identify, a tall conical and horned cap can partially be detected from the remaining traces. The upper body of this fi gure, which overall has a slender appearance, is fashioned triangular in shape with a frontal appearance. In contrast, the lower part of his body is depicted in profi le. His left foot is straight, whereas his right foot appears to be stepping on something as his upward raised foot indicates. Although it is diffi cult to estimate where the upraised right foot was stepping, the projection beneath his right foot might indicate that he was originally stepping on the hump of the bull. This is possible since the humped bulls were common in the iconography of the Old Babylonian seals.4 In accordance with the position of his feet, his left leg appears below the long dress because of the onward movement of the right foot. He wears a long dress that has vertically running piles. As in this cylinder seal from Daskyleion, the Old Babylonian cylinder seals also depict Adad standing on a bull and wearing a similar long dress.5 There are also cases in Old Babylonian seals in which Adad stands on a mountain or a reclining bull. Moreover, Old Babylonian seals depict Adad stepping on the ground wearing a long dress that has vertically running piles with horizontally crossing wide bands arranged in regular intervals over them.6 The right hand of this fi gure is bent at the elbow and raised upwards. It holds the bridle of the bull and a two-sided thunderbolt. The end of the thunderbolt has rising zigzags that widen upwards symmetrically. As in other Old Babylonian seals, the thunderbolts that Adad holds have anywhere between 4 Werr 1988, pp. 78.90, 98.241, pls VIII.3(90), XXXV.3(241.a). We also know humped bulls from the Hittite, Achaemenid, and Sasanian seals. See Osten 1934, pp. 12, 46, 54, 66, 74–77, no: 299, 347, 456, 555–595. 5 Collon 1986, seal no: 447, pp. 449–450, 455–458, 460. 6 Collon 1986, seal no: 436–437, 439, 441a, 442–445, 452–454. 302 S. YAYLALI one and four zigzags.7 The bull has anatomically natural outlines. The plump front and back legs have details of muscles that reach to the body. Besides his horns and chin, the details of the bull’s head are not clearly discernible. The long bridle projecting from below the chin of the bull is hold by Adad standing on it. The downward leaning tail of the bull ends with a kind of a three-pointed fork similar to a thunderbolt. In the Old Babylonian cylinder seals, the tail of Adad’s sacred animal bull does not end with a form of thunderbolt.8 Thus, the treatment of the end of the bull’s tail in the shape of a three-pointed fork similar to a thunderbolt makes our seal from Daskyleion important among the examples of this type. The depiction of this male fi gure with a thunderbolt in a position standing on a bull helps us to understand whom this fi gure represents. In the Mesopotamian art, the god known as Adad in Akkadian, Ishkur in Sumerian, and Hadad in Aramean was often depicted in standing positions, either on a bull or near it.9 Likewise, the Hittite and Hurrian storm/sky/weather god Teshup10 was also often depicted in a standing position on his sacred animal bull with a thunderbolt in his hand.11 This type of standing fi gure holding a thunderbolt and bridle on a bull documented on our seal from Daskyleion appears to be a common feature of Old Babylonian cylinder seals as well. Moreover, the depiction of the end of the bull’s tail in the shape of a thunderbolt, the attribute of the god Adad, implies that it was intended to recall Adad. Based on these criteria, this fi gure depicted on a bull could be Adad, the storm/sky/weather god. The evidence that the cuneiform inscribed within the vertical lines of our seal from Daskyleion bears the name of “God Adad” can confi rm this assertion.12 The second standing fi gure depicted on the left of the scene facing Adad is depicted in a position paying respect to Adad. She is depicted from profi le with upright raised hand bent from the elbows on the level of her shoulders. This slender and thinly fashioned fi gure has a narrow waist with hips seen beneath her dress. Her feet are to be seen below her long dress that reaches 7 Collon 1986, seal no: 440 (one zigzag); seal no: 95, 243, 247-249, 251, 442, 447, 452, 458, 460, 611 (two zigzags); seal no: 238, 246, 311, 314, 525 (three zigzags); seal no: 344 (four zig- zags). 8 The lion dragon was occasionally depicted as the sacred animal of Adad, although it is not as common as the bull. See Osten 1934, pp. 37, 104, seal no: 220; Frankfort 1939, pl.
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