346 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
ence in the art, which appears to be largely native. A few are to be excepted of the 
earlier type, such as have been mentioned above, which are either purely Babylonian 
or Syro-Phenician. One such with an inscription is given in fig. 1166, which appar- 
ently imitates Egyptian signs. It is of terra-cotta and contains an Egyptian human 
figure with a hawk’s head before a lotus. In fig. 1167, which seems to be Cypriote, 
the figure holding two lotuses to his nose is clearly Egyptian, while the sacred tree 1s 
as clearly Assyrian. 
As to the date of the Cypriote cylinders we have a remarkable statement by 
Ohnefalsch-Richter, who says (“Kypros,” Text, p. 283, note): 
None of these cylinder-seals, indeed, no cylinder-seals at all, have been hitherto found in Greco- 
Pheenician tombs of the Iron Age in Cyprus. The hundreds of seal-cylinders which have come to light 
were all (like those I myself excavated) in tombs of the Copper-Bronze Age. LL, P. di Cesnola did 
not find in Greco-Pheenician tombs of the Iron Age at Kurium (still less in a temple treasure) the 
cylinders he publishes (Cesnola—Stern, plates Lxxv—Lxxvim) as part of his Kurium find, and A. P. di Ces- 
nola did not find at Salamis the cylinders he publishes as coming from Salamis (<* Salaminia,’’ plates x1 to 
xv, 51, and figs, 113-123). As all the cylinders relating to the discovery, of which we have trustworthy 
information, were discovered in Pre-Graco-Phcenician tombs of the Copper-Bronze Period, we are justified 
in assigning those published by the two Cesnolas to this early date. ‘The latest specimens can scarcely be 
later than 1000 B.C, 
I am inclined to accept this conclusion as to the date of the Cypriote cylinders. 
While they have had a local development, they had their origin, of course, on the 
neighboring continent; and the types from which they were drawn do not seem 
to have been much developed. In size and shape they are rather Babylonian than 
Assyrian in style, and so show, like the Syro-Hittite seals, the influence of a period 
antedating the speciai Assyrian influence, or, indeed, that of the Kassite period. 
It is perhaps as much as can be said that they probably belong to the period of 
from 2000 to 1000 B. C. 
The motives employed in the Syro-Hittite art will be found in the Cypriote 
seals, but rudely engraved in a linear style. They are mostly animals, very poorly 
drawn, or men, or trees. The occasional heraldic arrangement of two animals in 
front of a tree, or other object, is in the prevailing style of the Syrian coast. A single 
cylinder may be mentioned which possibly gives a more exact attribution of time. 
It is shown in fig. 1168. A couple of personages stand before a disk with rays. 
These rays shoot out in every direction below the two horizontal ones in a style 
which finds a parallel only in the Egyptian solar disk introduced as the emblem of 
the one God worshiped by the heretic king Amenophis IV. It will be remembered 
that the disk as worshiped by him consisted simply of the circle of the sun, with 
neither asps nor wings, but with lines of rays, each of which ended in a hand of 
benediction holding the emblem of life. In this Cypriote seal we seem to have this 
same idea, and it 1s the only case known to us in which the solar disk is provided with 
such rays, unless it be the same in fig. 1014. It is a fair presumption that this seal 
belongs to the period of Amenophis IV. or is of about that time. We have no knowl- 
edge whence Amenophis IV. derived his form of the solar disk with rays. It seems 
to have originated with him, but it is possible that it came with his mother from 
Syria, although we do not know of any such form of the disk in that region and no 
other case is known out of Egypt. Of course it would have been impossible in this 
cylinder to develop the rays with the hands and the crux ansata. 
