SealsAchaemenid5th century BCE

Scaraboid Stamp Seal: Rider Attacks Boar

500-400 BCE

Description

This agate scaraboid stamp seal features an image of a rider attacking a rampant boar. The carving of the horse is shallow, save for the swells of its chest and hindquarters. Its head and neck are large in comparison to the rest of its body. The rider has a large head and a long beard, and is wearing a pointed cap. In his upraised hand he holds a spear. The boar has a lumpy body and a triangular head. It stands on its hind legs, and extends one foreleg towards the horse’s head. The pointed cap and long beard identify the rider as a Persian. Board hunt scenes occur on Achaemenid Persian seals as early as c. 500 BCE in the Persepolis Fortification Archive (1). They also occur among the seals used in the Murashu Archive in Nippur in the fifth century BCE (2) and among the seal bullae excavated at Daskyleion in northwestern Turkey (3). This motif also occurs on a number of other scaraboid stamp seals, sometimes with the hunter on foot instead of mounted (4). NOTES 1. M. B. Garrison, “Notes on a Boar Hunt (PFS 2323),” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 54.2 (2011) 17-20. 2. L. B. Bregstein, Seal Use in Fifth Century B.C. Nippur, Iraq: A Study of Seal Selection and Sealing Practices in the Murašû Archive (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1993) nos. 145-51. 3. D. Kaptan, The Daskyleion Bullae: Seal Images from the Western Achaemenid Empire (Leiden, 2002) nos. 90, 92. 4. J. Boardman, Greek Gems and Finger Rings: Early Bronze Age to Late Classical (London, 1970) nos. 885, 905, 925, 926, 972, 980.

Classification

Seals

Technique

Intaglio

Medium

Agate

Culture

Achaemenid

Period

Classical period

Century

5th century BCE