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  1. Discover
  2. Paper: The Achaemenid Empire, 550-330 BC
  3. Unit: Week 4 - Cultural Hybridity and "Glocalization"

Cylinder seal with royal hero and Bes figure

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Image for Seal

Commentary

Cylinder seal with royal hero and Bes figure
Accession number: 
AN1889.360
Collection: 
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford

Cylinder seal with royal hero and Bes figure

Red-brown agate breccia cylinder seal. ​Royal hero standing between two horned lion-griffins, which he grasps by the bases of the horns. To either side, the Egyptian dwarf-god Bes, with bent legs, kilt and headdress. Unprovenanced: bought in Lebanon, 1889.

32mm x 16mm.

Briggs Buchanan, Catalogue of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in the Ashmolean Museum Vol. I: Cylinder Seals (1966), 121 no. 675 (Ashmolean 1889.360).

Commentary
The royal hero overcoming a mythological beast is a standard image in Achaemenid royal art; compare for instance the scenes of the royal hero fighting a horned lion-griffin on the door-jambs of the Palace of Darius, the Harem, and the Throne Hall at Persepolis (excellent discussion by M. Cool Root, The King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art, 1979, 303-308), and very numerous cylinder- and stamp-seals from all parts of the empire (e.g. here). The Egyptian dwarf-god Bes does not appear in "official" Achaemenid art, but becomes a very common presence on private artefacts (seals, amulets, metalware etc) throughout the empire in the fifth and fourth centuries BC: K. Abdi, 'Bes in the Achaemenid Empire', Ars Orientalis 29 (1999), 113-140 (available on academia.edu); K. Abdi, 'Notes on the Iranianization of Bes in the Achaemenid Empire', Ars Orientalis 32, (2002), 133-162 (also available on academia.edu). The iconography of the seal is a curious mixture of Iranian and Egyptian elements.