Page 4 - DILMUN NO 7

The distinctive motif of the foot and its
Remarks on rendering relate the seal from the Barhar temple,
fig. 1, to the two feet engraved on a double-
faced disk found by C. C. Lambcrg-Karlovskv
Seals found in
in a Proto-Klamitc level at lcpc Yahya in
the Gulf States southeastern Iran,4 fig. 2. In view of the fact
that a stamp seal of “Persian Gulf” type was
by Edith V or ad a found in the same level, it seems legitimate to
use both examples from Tcpc Yahya to
Reprinted with kind permission by Edith establish the early date of the first group of
Porada which appeared in Artibus Asiae
Vol. XXXIII. 4 stamps from the Gulf States.
Confirmation for such an early date of the
The lively trade which was carried on in seals with the image of a foot may be found in
antiquity in the Gulf States is also manifested the occurrence of the motif of feet in the
in the seals found there. They had a long time impression of a stamp seal from Susa of the
span and reflect in their designs influences from archaic phase considered by Pierre Amict to
artistic repertories of different lands. have been contemporary with the first cylinder
Excavations in Bahrain and Failaka have seals? On this seal impression the feet arc shown
shown that two main groups of seals were as in the disk from Yahya, one foot pointing
made in these areas, an earlier and a later one. up, one down, but they arc placed on cither
The earlier group (Text Fig. A) is characteriz­
ed by a disk shape with a button boss “pierced
in one direction and divided across the other
by a groove.”1 The most common designs on
these seals are a bull with lowered head, a long-
horned goat or gazelle, and a scorpion (fig. 1).
Characteristic of the rendering of the
animal forms arc the large deep hollows made
for the major shapes, either rounded and giving
the impression that they were made with a
drill (although this may not have been the case),
or sharply gouged to create an angular effect
A deep, somewhat irregular cavity marks the
eye in which there is never a dot for the pupil.
Such a rendering recalls the representation of the
eyes of animals in cylinders of the Early
Dynastic period of Mesopotamia from the First
to the Third Early Dynastic period.2
Human figures are entirely absent from the
seals of this group. A human foot, however,
appears in several of these stamps, as in our
Fig. 1. Here the shape of the foot is quite
naturalistically carved, narrowing at the instep
and having a toe which widens slightly at the
tip. In other, later examples on seals from
Bahrain, the foot is a single undifferentiated
form, and thin lines, which look like prongs Figs. A and B. Drawings of shapes
and often arc less than five in number,3 indicate of Gulf seals : A, earlier group ; B, later
the toes. group.

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