24th-22nd century BC. A deeply engraved and well-detailed? speckled stone cylinder seal?; on the left? a bull-man (kusarikku, s. sub no. 1), who fights against a rampant lion, facing the viewer and gripping with his hands both paws of the beast, whose upright tail forms an S?; behind the lion a capride sits upright like a human, in side view and with head turned back, on a pedestal, whose horizontal and vertical lines are supposed to symbolise a mountain?; a horned lion-dragon with lion's foreparts and bird's hind-legs, tail and wings?,? grasps with his paws the tail and the throat of the Capriden?,? and bites into its muzzle?; between lion-dragon and bull-man there is an inverted la?mu (s. sub no. 1)?,? with arms folded in front of the belly?; the representation of upside-down figures ?has ?so far ?not interpreted?; occasionally, this motif appears with cut seals, as revealed traces?; but this is not a rule,? ?as the upside down la?mu also ?appears on unchanged seals and thus represents a motif with its own special meaning, supplied with museum quality impression. For the motive of a capride, sitting on a stylised mountain, turning back the head, in whose a lion-dragon bites, in later times,? c.f. Özgüç, ?N. ?Kültepe-Kaniš/Neša?,? Ankara?,? 2006,? ?pl.43, fig.CS 519 (Old Assyrian?;?) and? ?Collon, ?D ?Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum. Cylinder Seals III. Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian Periods?,? London?, ?1986, pl.XIII,? ?fig.135 (Old Babylonian); and for the representation of upside-down figures see: Klengel-Brandt, E. Zu einigen Siegelabrollungen auf Kültepe-Tafeln im Vorderasiatischen Museum, Berlin, and in: M. J. Mellink et al. (edit.), Aspects of Art and Iconography: Anatolia and Its neighbors. Studies in Honor of Nimet Özgüç, Ankara, 1993, p.87, footnote 15. 16 grams, 26mm (1"). From an important London collection, acquired in the 1980-1990s.

Very fine condition.