6 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
tions would be (rarely if ever found) turquoise and red feldspar. Hematite is the 
commonest of all stones for cylinders, contrary to Petrie’s report of its non-use for 
engraving in Egypt; and beryl, garnet, and corundum are not known in cylinders. 
The onyx appears cut transversely in cylinders; cut along its layers it was employed 
for the eyes of idols. 
If the earliest seals were made of the lower joint of a reed or the slender reed 
shaft of an arrow, they have all perished. ‘The earliest material that we know 
seems to have been shell. ‘The center core was used of certain univalves of the 
genera Trito and Melo (Heuzey, “Cat. des Antiquités Chaldéennes,”’ p. 383), found 
in the Persian Gulf. Some of these are quite well preserved, and they nearly always 
show on the ends the curves of the helix of the shell (fig. 4) and usually on the sur- 
face some signs of the somewhat laminated, though quite solid, deposition of the 
nacreous substance. Usually the shell shows abundant evidence of decomposition 
and its substance is much deteriorated; and yet in some cases it is so compact that 
it might easily be mistaken for marble. It took fine lines, and from the earliest 
period both the core and the spreading outer portion of the shell were employed 
for decorative designs (Heuzey, “Cat. des Antiquités Chaldéennes,” pp. 383-405). 
Another very common material, indeed the most common of all, in the earlier 
Babylonian period, was serpentine, usually a rather hard black serpentine, occa- 
sionally with a brown tint, sometimes showing a green shade in the case of a thin 
fracture. Less common than the black was a somewhat softer light-green serpen- 
tine of a less compact structure, which does not take so fine a polish with wear, 
but which would seem to have been more valued. While serpentine is somewhat 
too soft for preservation against wear, it is not dissolved or injured by the elements, 
and such cylinders come to us in as good condition as they left their owners, unless, 
as is too often the case, they have been recut by modern merchants in antiquities. 
Many are thus rendered quite valueless. Most of the seals of this material are of 
the period before the time of Gudea; they are large, 3 cm. or more in length and 
half as thick, and are concave on the surface, although some are quite cylindrical. 
The serpentine of the early south Babylonian period is of a different quality from 
most of the north Assyrian serpentine, which is usually much softer and less com- 
pact and is very much worn in most cases. The color of these northern cylinders 
is of a dark greenish gray, not like the clearer green of the older cylinders of early 
Chaldea. Some extraordinarily large cylinders found by M. de Morgan in Susa 
are of a very light-green serpentine. ‘The sources of these varieties of serpentine 
still need investigation. 
Another material, less common, is white marble. ‘These cylinders may be of 
a very early period and of a large size, but they are seldom, if ever, concave on the 
face. It would therefore seem likely that they were not produced so much in Chal- 
dea as in some of the outlying provinces. One must avoid mistaking shell, when 
undecayed, for marble. 
The source of the marble is still uncertain. On the cylinder “Inscription A,”’ 
Gudea, we are told that the stone szr (marble) was brought from the Mountain of 
Marble (Thureau-Dangin, Zertsch. fir Ass., 1903, p. 196). This Thureau-Dangin 
identifies with str-gal, on Gudea, “Cylinder B,”’ said to have come from a place 
near the Mediterranean Sea, as we learn from an inscription on a small object in 
the Louvre, which says it is made of sir-gal (Heuzey, “Catalogue des Antiquités 
