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  1. (D. 1549). Basalt. Cylinder seal with a large axial perforation. 21 x 12 mm. Enlarged on Plate VI.
    A bearded naked archer has shot a fleeing stag about to fall in death and is in the act of taking a second arrow from his quiver, although the first rather oddly is not shown. Hellenic influence in this design is shown among other things by the very slender waists of both man and animal and by the treatment of the man's hair which is bound with a fillet or a plain ribbon. The stag is unusually beautiful. The slender waist on both men and animals appears frequently on the seal impressions on clay dockets from the time of Darius 1, excavated by the Oriental Institute's expedition at Persepolis and to be published presently by Neilson C. Debevoise.14a
XII. SEALS OF THE SELEUCID PERIOD (330 to 247 B.C. in Persia, to 143 B.C. in Meso- potamia) :15
  1. (D. 1550). Dark chalcedony. Oval ring-setting with a nearly straight edge, flat on both faces, and unfinished on the back. 12 x I I x 2 mm.
    Portrait head of a woman, showing Hellenistic influence. This seal is suspect because it shows no weathering and would seem to have too much of a sheen to be ancient. However, it is made of a very hard material and hence may be ancient.
  2. (D. 1551). Carnelian. Circular ring-setting with a nearly straight edge, very slightly convex on both faces. 11 x 2 mm.
    A half-sitting lion with head reverted and shaggy mane.
  3. (D. 1552). Carnelian. Oval ring-setting with a very convex base and a flat back. 10 x 9 x 3 mm.
    A running antelope.
  4. (D. 1553). Carnelian. Oval ring-setting with a very convex base and a flat back. 14 x 12 x 4 mm. Enlarged on Plate VI.
    A winged humped bull in an unusual posture - its body in profile and its head full face and lowered as if in the act of attacking.
  5. (D. 1554). Carnelian. Oval ring-setting with a very convex base and a flat back. 17 x 12 x 4 mm. Enlarged on Plate VI.
    This is a sacrificial scene, showing a man before an altar with a goat behind
14a. A number of seal impressions found at Assur have accompanying inscriptions which permit a dating in the Middle-Assyrian time, cf. Moortgat, Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie, XX, 1940, pp. 1 ff. In this article which Professor Meek has been unable to consult new criteria for the Middle- Assyrian glyptic have consequently been proposed, and on the strength of Moortgat's argumentation, I should date the seal No. 43 to this early period (13th century B.C.)- H.I.
15. It is a striking but inexplicable fact that there 		    are thousands of Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian seals in the various public and private collections of the world, and yet scarcely a single one has been excavated by any archaeological expedition in the field. Practically all of them have come from the clandestine digging of the natives; hence their provenance and stratigraphical context are quite unknown. The result is that we have scarcely any data wherewith to distinguish the one from the other and I am not at all certain that I have divided our seals correctly among the three periods.

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