A New Cylinder Seal from Ancient Margiana: Cultural Exchange and Syncretism in a World Wide Trade System at the End of the 3rd Millennium BC

In S. Salvatori and M. Tosi (eds.) The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in the Margiana Lowlands: Facts and Methodological Proposals for a Redefinition of the Research Strategies (British Archaeological Reports. International Series 1806). — Oxford, 2008. — pp. 111-118.In October 2000, during the surveys performed within the Italian-Turkmen joint project “Archaeological Map of the Murgab Delta”, a cylinder seal in white stone with rust-coloured streaks, of exquisite workmanship, was found on the surface of Site No. 1220 (41N 413728, 4211999).
The cylinder seal examined in this essay has a motif that is frequently reproduced in the repertory of Mesopotamian glyptic, with which the carver was probably acquainted. It is the well-known motif in which at the centre there is a human figure, and by its sides there are two bull-men whose heads are turned back towards two chiastically arranged lions, who are attacking them from behind.