Stamp seal: hunters and goats, rectangular pen (?)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The earliest stone seals of the Gulf region were made of steatite hardened by firing and often glazed after they were carved. The impression of the hemispherical stamp seal depicted here shows a male figure in the upper field who grasps a caprid by the neck. To the left, a male figure holds a staff. Below, a recumbent caprid reclines beneath a gridded rectangle. A snake and perhaps a monkey(?) are also depicted in the field. The hemispherical form and round sealing face are typical of seals of the Gulf region, as are the incised lines and concentric circles that decorate the back of this seal. Similar seals have been found in Mesopotamia, Iran, and the Indus Valley, areas with which Gulf merchants traded and with whom they shared a common visual vocabulary.

Ancient Near Eastern Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art cares for approximately 7,000 works ranging in date from the eighth millennium B.C. through the centuries just beyond the emergence of Islam in the seventh century A.D. Objects in the collection were created by people in the area that today comprises Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean coast, Yemen, and Central Asia. From the art of some of the world's first cities to that of great empires, the department's holdings illustrate the beauty and craftsmanship as well as the profound interconnections, cultural and religious diversity, and lasting legacies that characterize the ancient art of this vast region.

Metropolitan Museum of Art