INTRODUCTION: ORIGIN, USE, AND MATERIALS. 5) 
of the interlacings on Hittite cylinders or in Mycenzan art. See also the gold 
mounting in fig. 1215; and we have almost the same design in the ornamentation 
about the base of a gold lion’s head in M. de Morgan’s “Délégation en Perse,” 
“Mémoires,” vol. vil, plate xxtv. 
This highly qeveloned perfection of ornamentation by lines and curves is, 
however, no iene of advanced civilization, as Ridgeway has shown in me 
“Early Greece,” 1, pp. 272-274, where he figures a Maori chieftain’s wooden 
scepter and ax, penta ornamented with whorl and spiral, almost exactly after 
the Mycenzan style. Indeed, the returning spirals are precisely the same as are to 
be seen on Syro-Hittite cylinders, as in fig. 827. 
I have said that it was probably the shape of the clay tablet that gave its shape 
to the seal. But it has been seductively suggested (C. W. King, “Handbook of 
Engraved Gems,” p. 4) that the original seal, in the rudest times, was the joint of 
a reed from the swamps. The lower joints are not far from the size and shape of 
the early concave seals. It would have been easy to make a seal out of one of 
these joints by cutting any desired coarse device on the surface. The reed would 
itself supply the hole for suspension. But this is pure conjecture unsubstantiated 
by any evidence; and, indeed, the very oldest cylinders, as has been said, do not 
seem to have been concave. 
The hole, or tube, for the suspension of the cylinder was, in the earliest times, 
quite large, in the case of the larger seals sometimes almost a centimeter in diameter. 
It was bored from both ends, and never would the two borings exactly meet in the 
middle. In the later seals, especially those in hard stone, the bore was much smaller. 
Very often, on the more common seals, those in a soft stone, we find the edges of 
the hole very much worn and enlarged, showing that it was carried not on a fixed 
and firm metal mounting, but on a string. Still, some of this wearing may be late, 
as cylinders when found are valued by the Arab women and are worn as charms. 
Previous to Gudea’s time and further back than the time of Sargon I. the 
cylinders were usually large and thick, from 30 to 60 mm. in length and the 
diameter considerably more than half. During Gudea’s time the fashion changed 
to the smaller hematite cylinders, about 20 mm. in length and the diameter half 
the length. Fig. 39 is a cylinder of Gudea of the old style, and others with his 
name are of the later and smaller hematite type. 
MATERIALS. 
According to W. M. Flinders Petrie (Hastings’s Dictionary of the Bible, 
‘Precious Stones’’), the stones commonly known to the Egyptians for jewelry and 
engraving are the following, arranged by colors: 
Black, obsidian; blue, amethyst, lapis-lazuli; green, serpentine, feldspar (Ama- 
zon stone), jasper, turquoise; yellow, agate, jasper; brown, sard; red, red sard, 
feldspar, carnelian, jasper; white, quartz, milky quartz, chalcedony. To these he 
adds hematite, beryl, garnet, and corundum, which are found not engraved. After 
the Greek times the onyx (or nicolo) and the olivine (peridot, modern chrysolite) 
appear, and the beryl is rare before Graeco-Roman times. These are much the 
same that were known to the Greeks before Theophrastus, 300 B.C. Nearly all 
the stones used for engraving in Egypt are also found in the cylinders. The excep- 
