seal BM-1907-1111.26

Period:Unknown
Materials:garnet
Technique:intaglio
Subjects:mammal
Dimensions:Length: 2.29 centimetres

Description:
Eliptical seal made of intaglio garnet. The decoration consists of two lions fighting against each other. The representation of the two animals is very symmetrical. Underneath the lions a recumbent cow is depicted, around them is an inscription that has been partially erased.
IMG
图片[1]-seal BM-1907-1111.26-China Archive 图片[2]-seal BM-1907-1111.26-China Archive 图片[3]-seal BM-1907-1111.26-China Archive

Comments:Stein, Ancient Khotan, p. 209, 220, pl. XLIX: “Among the intaglios from Yotkan reproduced in Plate XLIX the standing Eos (Kh.002), and the quadriga with charioteer (Kh.001.a) are manifestly Roman works of the early centuries AD. Impressions from intaglios very closely related to the former in style and character (Eros, Pallas, Heracles) appear in the clay seals on some of the Kharosthi documents discovered by me at the Niya Site, which date from about the middle of the third century (see Plate LXXI). Of the rest of these cut stones Professor Percy Gardner, to whom I am indebted for a close examination of them, holds that they belong to the second and third centuries AD, and that most of them are rather oriental than Roman. The large intaglio (Y.008.b) is interesting on account of its careful delineation of a warrior of Indo-Scythic type arrayed in an elaborate assortment of arms. Y.008.a shows an inscription of ‘unknown’ characters above its device, two lions fighting over a prostrate bull. In this connexion it may be mentioned that the intaglio (I.001) also shows a legend hitherto undeciphered. Its characters closely resemble the corrupt Greek letters found on the so-called ‘Scytho-Sassanian” coins, and the features of the king’s head surrounded by the legend point equally to origin in the Indo-Iranian border lands.”
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