By the time the "rising Sun"
cylinder seal was carved, the balance-beam Scales that would become Libra were also in the sky.
These images had presumably been transmitted to the Nile Valley through portable
cylinder seals or their impressions on imports.
According to the style in which the figures are represented KG/VN/7 can be identified as a second millennium
cylinder seal from the Levant.
But the images on Mesopotamian
cylinder seals are intense and energized, miniature epics depicting a life-and-death struggle.
An Unpublished Neo-Assyrian
Cylinder Seal ("Property of Adad-nashira, the Eunuch of Bel-tarsi-ilumma") Kept in the Harvard Art Museum.
Similarly, as told in my previous article, the Water-Pourer (our Aquarius) remained in the sky but on later
cylinder seals was often shown as one of the gods themselves rather than as a mere human priest of Enki, which he had been originally.
(22.) For a
cylinder seal of Tudhaliya IV, see the very interesting article by Herbordt in The Iconography of
Cylinder Seals, ed.
Suzanne Herbordt ("The Hittite Royal
Cylinder Seal of Tuthaliya IV with Umarmungsszene") discusses the newly-discovered impression of the only known
cylinder seal belonging to a Hittite king.
Instead of clear simple prose, some statements, obviously made in an attempt to be au courant, are silly, others outrageous: Manishtushu's murder by
cylinder seal was "an excruciatingly slow way to go" (p.
Hoffmeister); "The Making of a
Cylinder Seal or Bead" (Zwickel); "Inscribed Seals from Palestine" (R.
Ashdod 1: Inscribed
cylinder seal (Israel Antiquities Authority).
