Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This solid-cast circular stamp is intact; its surface is incised with a guilloche pattern around nearly half of the periphery, with five separate spiral motifs occupying slightly over half of the field. These enclose an incised oval with six crescent-shaped incisions within it surrounding a larger hook-shaped incision, somewhat like a question mark. The vertical edge of the base (0.7 cm thick) is unadorned. The handle at the base of the seal (1.45 cm wide) consists of a stem divided into six flat facets that rise to a thin convex molding on which the handle rests. The top of the handle consists of two symmetrical, biconical shapes extending outward from a central raised band marked by three parallel incisions and ending with a single pointed form at either end; the top of the handle is perforated by a hole measuring 0.3 cm.
This type of stamp seal, sometimes called a “hammer head” seal, is characteristic of the early part of the Hittite Empire and the phases immediately preceding it, extending back to the Assyrian colony period (1).
NOTES:
1. For close parallels to this stamp, see M. Poetto and S. Salvatori, La collezione anatolica di E. Borowski, Studia Mediterranea 3 (Pavia, 1981) 40 and 137-38, nos. 35 and 39-41, pls. 14 and 35 (the design of no. 35 is very close to the Harvard stamp seal, with spirals and two guilloche knots around a central curvilinear figure). For general parallels for the design, see H. G. Güterbock, Siegel aus Boğazköy 2: Die Königssiegel von 1939 und die übrigen Hieroglyphensiegel (Berlin, 1942) 75, nos. 184-91 and 194-99 (nos. 194-95 are especially close to Harvard’s); and H. H. von der Osten, Altorientalische Siegelsteine der Sammlung Hans Silvius von Aulock (Uppsala, 1957) 44-50 and 139-40. For seals and impressions with spirals enclosing a central motif, see T. Beran, Die hethitische Glyptik von Boğazköy: Die Siegel und Siegelabdrücke der Vor- und althethitischen Perioden und die Siegel der hethitischen Grosskönige, Boğazköy-Hattusa 5.1, (Berlin, 1967) 26-27 (Beran’s Group XXI) and 59-61 (general discussion), nos. 87-102, pl. 2 (drawing). See also numerous examples in S. Alp, Zylinder- und Stempelsiegel aus Karahöyük bei Konya (Ankara, 1968) nos. 113, 137, 146-55, 158-59, 163-77, 195-200, 220-22, 245, 250, 258, 285-88, 292, 302-303, 306, 315, 319-20, 330-34, 350, 360, 364, 368-70, 372, 374-77, 379-86, 416, and 428; pls. 49, 56, 60-61, 63-67, 74-75, 82, 88, 90, 94, 101-102, 106, 108-109, 111-12, 117, 119, 121-27, 135, and 139. For the dating of the Karahöyük seals, see ibid., 269-70. A date of around the eighteenth century BCE, given the parallels of the Karahöyük seal impressions with those of Kültepe I, appears to be accurate. Compare a mold for a similar stamp seal in R. Boehmer, Die Kleinfunde von Boğazköy, Boğazköy-Hattusa 7 (Berlin, 1972) 217-18, no. 2230A, pl. 87.
David G. Mitten
