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Fig. 4 Drawings of impressions of Gulf seals
with drinking figures (reproduced from
Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger
(Chicago, 1965), PI. 16 C-D, by kind per­
mission of Briggs Buchanan).

the first, two figures seated opposite each other, the rest of the body of an animal or monster
drinking from vessels through large tubes. and using it in a composition in which a new
He pointed out that the motif of figures form was being created is too distinctive to have
drinking through tubes, which had been popular been invented independently at about the same
in Mesopotamia in the Ivarlv Dynastic and into period in areas that could have been linked by
the Akkad period, survived only on a group maritime trade. It seems much more likely
of Anatolian and North Syrian cylinders and that a seal of Accmhuyuk type reached
that, moreover, Syrian cylinders also furnished Bahrain or Kuwait and was imitated or that one
parallels for the occurancc of the bucranium of the Gulf seals was brought lo the West.
seen on the Gulf seals. While evidence of The connections of this distinctive design
correspondences in the rendering of the may lead even farther afield, however, since a
bucranium is very tenuous - the Syrian examples similar motif of horned heads on long necks
arc few in number and never show the bulls’ is found on a stamp seal from Mohcnjo-Daro?
head staring out of the picture plane as in the The lack of precise chronological information
Gulf seals - there arc other relations between concerning the examples of glyptic art here
North Syrian and Gulf seals which supporr compared precludes suggestions for priorirv of
Buchanan’s claim that there was sonic contact the invention of this formal motif.
between the glyptic groups. In a number of A more than formal relationship, however,
seals, for example fig. 6, the necks of six horned may have existed between a figure with
animals arc joined in the centre of the seal by streams, on Syrian seals, and the water carrier,
a circle with central dot. This motif is quite on one of the Gulf seals from Ur (fig. 8) discus­
close to one found on imprints from sed by C. J. Gadd10who observed that “rhe
Accmhuyuk near Konya by Nimct O/.guc in water carrier with his yoke and two skins (?)
which six griffin heads on long necks each is one of the most identifiable figures in the
head with a long curving feather resembling a ordinary (Harappa) script.” In a note, he added,
horn, arc joined by a circle with central dot. “the ‘waterman’ as such was unknown to the
The idea of dissociating head and neck from Babylonians both in name and figure” and

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