seal BM-1907-1111.27

Period:Unknown Production date:2ndC-3rdC (circa)
Materials:garnet
Technique:intaglio
Subjects:warrior
Dimensions:Length: 2.29 centimetres

Description:
Elliptical seal made of intaglio garnet. Shown is a fully armoured warrior with his head turned to his right. He wears a helmet fitting over the ears and with a plate mail hanging from the back half, a tunic of scale armour, a long chequered skirt and close-fitting boots. In his left hand he holds a spear, in his right a mace which is resting on his shoulder. Across the front of his thighs hangs a sword, at the back of his thighs a quiver. A recurve bow in a case (?) is shown to the left of the figure.
IMG


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.”