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TRACING THE ACQUISITION HISTORY OF SOME OLD SYRIAN POPULAR STYLE CYLINDER SEALS*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2016

Barbara A. Porter
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Abstract

Examples of Middle Bronze Age cylinder seals, categorized today as “Old Syrian popular style” have been documented since the mid-nineteenth century, albeit usually without any dating or provenance information. This particular subset of the vast array of ancient Near Eastern glyptic has recently been studied by the author and an acquisition history identified for many of them. Here the disparate paths that brought some of these seals into museums and private collections are explored to demonstrate, not only the vagaries of where these eminently portable objects end up, but to highlight the importance for modern scholarship of documenting such histories.

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Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 77 , December 2015 , pp. 143 - 157
Copyright
© The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2015 

Background

Old Syrian popular style (hereafter OSPS) cylinder seals date to the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000–1600 b.c.) and derive from greater Syria and Anatolia. They are considered to have belonged to non-elite members of society: a major characteristic of these seals is that they are predominantly carved from chlorite or talc (soapstone) and not from hematite (iron oxide) as used for more prestigious seals of the period (Sax, Collon and Leese Reference Sax, Collon and Leese1993: 89; Otto Reference Otto2000: 181; Porter Reference Porter2001: 195). Many are carved with representations of a seated figure drinking from a tube (e.g. Figs. 1, 3 and 9), while others combine standing human figures and animals (real and imaginary) in various combinations (e.g. Figs. 2, 5, 6–8). None of the seals are inscribed although occasionally pseudo-cuneiform signs are incorporated within the imagery (Porter Reference Porter2001: 237–39). They are carved in a “linear style”—a term first coined for this seal type by Edith Porada (Reference Porada1966); she illustrated as an iconic example a seal in the collection of the Morgan Library (Fig. 1).Footnote 1 Later Porada adopted the terminology “Old Syrian I” (Porada Reference Porada and Weiss1985: 93–94).Footnote 2

Fig. 1

Modern impression of a dark green stone cylinder seal, (2.54 × 1.3 cm), Morgan 1094. Photograph by B.A. Porter, courtesy of The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

As an exercise in documenting acquisition history, this article explores how a selection of OSPS cylinder seals were collected and made available to scholarship. In the survey I have divided the seals between excavated and unexcavated examples. Although unprovenanced seals of this type were recorded as early as the nineteenth century, only a few excavated examples are known from this period (e.g. Zinjirli, see below). Typically with excavated seals there was a time lag between their discovery and publication meaning that they were not available for immediate comparative studies and so scholarly work and conclusions were often based on the unprovenanced material.

OSPS seals excavated prior to 1945

Approximately one fifth of the catalogued OSPS seals were derived from excavations conducted between the 1880s and 1988.Footnote 3 Thus approximately a century of archaeological work is reflected in this study. Relevant seals have been discovered at sites on the Mediterranean coast (Byblos, Ras Shamra/Ugarit, Tell Sukas), in the Amuq region (Tell Atchana/Alalakh, Chatal Höyük, Tell Judaidah), in central Syria (Hama, Tell Mardikh/Ebla, Tell Munbaqa, Hammam et Turkman) and in central/southeastern Turkey (Alişar, Kültepe, Karahöyük, Lidar Höyük, Zinjirli). Inevitably, ongoing excavations continue to expand the excavated corpus. In this first section, I outline the publication history of seals excavated—or allegedly excavated—prior to the end of World War II.

Zinjirli

The earliest excavated examples of OSPS seals known to me are two from Zinjirli in southeastern Anatolia. There were discovered between 1882 and 1894 but not published until 1943 (von Luschan and Andrae Reference von Luschan and Andrae1943: 74, 161, pl. 39b and pl. 39c; Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 146 and 293). Although these seals are now in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, they were not included by Anton Moortgat in his catalogue of seals in Berlin (Moortgat Reference Moortgat1940). He did, however, publish a seal usually cited as from Zinjirli (Moortgat Reference Moortgat1940: 153, no. 776, pl. 91; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 292). This was actually purchased from a nearby village in 1888 (von Luschan and Andrae Reference von Luschan and Andrae1943: 74, 161, pl. 39a). Clearly the seal cannot be ascribed to Zinjirli but only to its environs.Footnote 4 It has been dated to c.3000 b.c. (Moortgat Reference Moortgat1940: no. 776, 153; see also Collon Reference Collon1987: 26, no. 71) but I have argued that this is an OSPS seal and should be dated to the early second millennium b.c. (Porter Reference Porter2001: 167–68; see also Aruz Reference Aruz, Pini and Poursat1995: 9, n. 29).

Gezer

Although discovered later than the examples from Zinjirli, the first excavated OSPS seal to be published was discovered at Gezer during the Palestine Exploration Fund excavations (1902 to 1909). It was found in a first millennium b.c. tomb and published promptly by R.A. Stewart Macalister in Reference Macalister1912 (Vol. 1, 359, fig. 186 bottom; Parker Reference Parker1949: 37, no. 167, pl. 24; Porter Reference Porter2001: 82–83, no. 59).

Beth Shan

Another OSPS cylinder from Palestine was excavated at Beth Shan in 1931 under the aegis of the University of Pennsylvania (Parker Reference Parker1949: 31, no. 136, pl. 21; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 376).Footnote 5 It was included in Barbara Parker's study of seals in Palestine (both excavated and purchased) before World War II (Parker Reference Parker1949: 1).

The provision in older publications of accurate provenances for excavated seals remains a significant problem. Take, for example, an OSPS cylinder seal alleged to have been found in a Bronze Age tomb at Klavdia, Cyprus (Fig. 2). It was accessioned in 1898 by the British Museum's Department of Greece and Rome (GR 1898,1020.2) but only published in 1971 by V.E.G. Kenna (Reference Kenna1971: no. 107, 33, pl. 29).Footnote 6 Its collection history, as detailed by the British Museum's online database, reveals however that it was purchased from William Talbot Ready in 1898.Footnote 7 It therefore did not derive from the museum's 1899 excavations of the many tombs at the site of Klavdia-Tremithos in the Larnaka Bay area as often stated.

Fig. 2

Modern impression of a burnt hematite cylinder seal, (2.0 x .9 cm), GR 1898,1020.2. Photograph courtesy Trustees of the British Museum

In the first half of the twentieth century a number of OSPS seals were excavated. The first, and most promptly, published excavated examples from this period were those found in the so-called Montet jar at Byblos in 1922 (Montet Reference Montet1923: nos. 397–399; Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 137, 195, 288). The Danish excavations at Hama (1931 to 1938) uncovered two seals that were published in 1940 by Harold Ingholt (Reference Ingholt1940: pls. 13/6 and 19/1; Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 28, 116); they were only partially preserved but remain important in terms of their iconography and chronology. Two seals from the University of Chicago's excavations at Alişar (1927–1932) were published in 1932 (von der Osten and Schmidt Reference von der Osten and Schmidt1932: fig. 34; Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 309, 357). My research identified twelve OSPS seals from the University of Chicago's excavations at Chatal Höyük and Tall Judaidah (1932–1938) in the Amuq.Footnote 8 Examples were also found at Alalakh/Tell Atchana in the late 1930s by Leonard Woolley (Reference Woolley1955: nos. 43, 76, 107; Collon Reference Collon1982: nos. 35, 12, 10; Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 240, 392, 393).Footnote 9 Finally, the seals found at Ras Shamra/Ugarit in the 1930s were not published for some sixty years (Amiet Reference Amiet1992: nos. 7, 8, 11; Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 384, 52, 60).Footnote 10

This brief overview demonstrates that the publication history of excavated seals has been, to say the least, somewhat uneven.

Unprovenanced OSPS seals in European museums (1840–1914)Footnote 11

What follows are the collection histories of nine unprovenanced seals that form part of significant museum collections in Berlin, Geneva, Leiden and Paris formed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Porter Reference Porter2001: 118–22). Very relevant to our understanding of practices that led to the formation of collections of this type is a study by Brett Thorn and Dominique Collon of a group of seals acquired by John Lee (1783–1866) and now in the Buckinghamshire County Museum (Thorn and Collon Reference Thorn and Collon2013). The authors have demonstrated that seal collecting had already gained popularity by the 1840s—in many cases by those with opportunities to travel within the Near East—along with an interest in producing catalogues of them. This is highlighted especially by the work in the late 1830s of A. Cullimore who planned to document a number of European seal collections (Cullimore Reference Cullimore1842–1843). He did not complete this work, perhaps because Félix Lajard (see below) was undertaking an even more comprehensive study of seals (Thorn and Collon Reference Thorn and Collon2013: 121–24). The range of seals and associated acquisition documentation for the Lee collection highlights the very personal nature of collecting and recording of seals at this time, as well as the general lack of documentation relating to the acquisition—both on Lee's travels in the Near East and in England—surely something familiar to any modern scholar pursuing collection histories.

The following unprovenanced OSPS seals are arranged by the date of their first known acquisition.

National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden

An OSPS seal that was in the Royal Cabinet of The Hague was included by Joachim Ménant in his 1878 monograph of the collection (Ménant Reference Ménant1878: no. 60–29).Footnote 12 It is recorded as having been acquired in the early nineteenth century, possibly by the Dutch Ambassador to the Sublime Porte in Constantinople.Footnote 13 The seal was published by Jitta Zadoks-Josephus (Reference Zadoks-Josephus1952: 36, no. 143; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 54) as part of the Hague collection. Its more recent history is somewhat complex as the Royal Coin Cabinet (Rijksmuseum het Koninklijk Penninkabinet) was moved from The Hague to Leiden in 1986. In 2004 this institution was amalgamated with the museums of the Dutch Bank and the Royal Mint as a new entity—the Geldmuseum in Utrecht. In 2013 this museum was in turn closed and the collections were divided between the Dutch Bank in Amsterdam (numismatic material) and the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden (seals, gems, cameos etc.).Footnote 14

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

Two seals now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris (Fig. 3), were first published by Félix Lajard in 1847 (Lajard Reference Lajard1847: pl. 41, fig. 6; Delaporte Reference Delaporte1910: no. 58; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 90).Footnote 15 They were also included in the 1848 catalogue of the Bibliothèque impériale and were noted as having been acquired in 1844 (Chabouillet Reference Chabouillet1848: nos. 771 and 774).Footnote 16

Fig. 3

Modern impression of a cylinder seal, possibly serpentine, (2.4 × 1.2 cm), Delaporte 58. Photograph by B.A. Porter; courtesy of Elizabeth Williams and the département des Monnaies, médailles et antiques of the Bibliothèque nationale de France

Musée d'Art et Histoire, Geneva. A seal acquired in 1871 by Walter Fol (1832–1890) (Fig. 4) was housed in the museum that he established in his name in 1874 and subsequently incorporated into the Musée d'Art et Histoire in Geneva. Fol published the seal with other items from his collection in 1875 (Fol Reference Fol1875: 79, pl. 2, fig. 2; Vollenweider Reference Vollenweider1967: 106, no. 134, pl. 54:1–4; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 334).Footnote 17

Fig. 4

Modern impression of a black stone cylinder seal, (1.8 × 1.0 cm), Collection Fol: MF 1384. Photograph after Vollenweider Reference Vollenweider1967, courtesy of the Musée d'Art et d'Historie de Genève

Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin

In his catalogue of the Berlin seal collection, Moortgat included an example (VA 734) that was said to have been acquired in Greece and deposited in the Antiquarium für Antike Kunst in 1885 (Moortgat Reference Moortgat1940: 153, no. 783, pl. 92; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 207). It is very similar to a seal in the Guimet collection that was acquired around the same time (see below).

Musée du Louvre, Paris

The industrialist Émile Guimet (1836–1918) had a collection of 156 seals published in 1909, which included an OSPS seal (Delaporte Reference Delaporte1909: no. 6; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 206). He initially housed his seals in a private museum in Lyon, established in 1879 as the Musée des Religions, which was subsequently transferred to the Musée Guimet in Paris. All of the ancient Near Eastern seals from his collection were transferred to the Louvre (Collon Reference Collon1987: 99). The official transfer took place in 1945 although the seals were moved physically in 1947 and 1950.Footnote 18 Other OSPS seals in the Louvre include one (AM 1527 (A.938)) acquired in 1911 and said to have been found at Kara-Euyuk (Höyük) (Delaporte Reference Delaporte1923: 196, pl. 97, fig. 11; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 250) and another (AO 3271 (A.862)) recorded as a gift from Paul Gaudin and attributed to the region of Izmir (Smyrna) (Delaporte Reference Delaporte1923: 187, pl. 94, fig. 16; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 112). Finally, one cylinder seal (AO22437) is recorded by the museum as deriving from the region of Homs, Syria (Fig. 5). It is ascribed to anciens fonds, in other words it is a pre–1900 acquisition but the exact year is unknown (Amiet Reference Amiet1973: 126, no. 349; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 198).Footnote 19

Fig. 5

Modern impression of a dark stone cylinder seal, (1.3 × 1.0 cm), AO 22437. Photograph by B.A. Porter; courtesy of Elizabeth Williams and department des Antiquités orientales of the Musée du Louvre

Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

A small group of seals in the Ashmolean Museum were acquired by D.G. Hogarth, Leonard Woolley and T.E. Lawrence in the years leading up to 1914 (Buchanan Reference Buchanan1966: ix). The four OSPS seals were acquired in Aleppo (Buchanan Reference Buchanan1966: nos. 842 and 843), Birejik (Buchanan Reference Buchanan1966: no. 847) and Beirut (Buchanan Reference Buchanan1966: no. 848).Footnote 20 Woolley (1880–1960) and Lawrence (1888–1935) were part of the British Museum team excavating at Carchemish under the direction of D.G. Hogarth (1862–1927). Lawrence bought seals from villagers and dealers to augment the collection that Hogarth had established in Oxford as Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum (from 1909).Footnote 21

Seals in American museums and collections

Some relevant seals also came into American collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and are presented here in order of their publication history.

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia

The two earliest documented OSPS seals in American collections were presented in 1890 to the museum by Maxwell Sommerville (1829–1904), the university's Professor of Glyptology (Berges Reference Berges1999: 19). They were published separately—one by Maxwell Sommerville (Reference Sommerville1889: no. 499, pl. 30; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 77) and the other by Léon Legrain (Reference Legrain1925 no. 572; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 14).

Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

The Morgan Library holds an iconic example of this seal type as mentioned above (Fig. 1). It was first published by the Reverend William Hayes Ward in a privately printed volume (Ward Reference Ward1909: no. 173, pl. 24; see also Ward Reference Ward1910: 434–44, fig. 734). Three other OSPS seals are part of the original Morgan collection (Porada Reference Porada1948: nos. 1091, 1092, 1093; Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 194, 36, 97) which included more than one thousand items acquired between 1885 and 1908, largely with the assistance of W.H. Ward (1835–1916).

Yale University, New Haven

Seven seals were part of an extensive collection formed by Edward T. Newell (1886–1941). The collection as studied by Hans Henning von der Osten (Reference von der Osten1934) contained 695 seals which were published again by Briggs Buchanan as part of the Yale Babylonian Collection to which they had been bequeathed by Newell's widow in 1967 (Buchanan Reference Buchanan1981: nos. 1108, 1166–69, 1174–75).Footnote 22 The seals in the collection were acquired over a period of thirty years by Newell (Yale class 1907), sometimes singly but also in small groups from dealers as well as from W.H. Ward and Professor O.N. Rood of Columbia University (von der Osten 1934: vii).

Moore Collection, New York

Of the 198 seals forming the diverse published seal collection of Mrs Ada Small Moore (1858–1955) there is one OSPS example (Eisen Reference Eisen1940: no. 190, 66, pl. 17; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 211). Moore is known to have collected some seals during her travels in the Near East (Williams Forte Reference Williams Forte1976: 1). The 1940 publication by Gustavus A. Eisen provides the terminus ante quem of acquisition for most of the Moore Collection seals.Footnote 23 The collection was placed on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1955. In 1985, Mrs. Moore's grandson, The Right Rev. Paul Moore, Jr. gifted forty-eight of the Moore seals to the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art at Metropolitan Museum of Art: fourteen stamps and thirty-four cylinders (Harper Reference Harper1986: 16). The rest of the collection was subsequently sold at auction (Sotheby's New York Reference Sotheby's1991) and dispersed, thus the current whereabouts of this seal remains unknown to me.

Princeton University, Princeton

One OSPS seal was gifted by Moses Taylor Pyne (Princeton Class 1877) to Princeton University's Firestone Library some time before 1901 (Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 272).Footnote 24 It was first published by Cyrus Gordon (Reference Gordon1953: 246, 250, no. 14, pl. 61).

Collections initiated during the French Mandate period (1923−1946)

The Seyrig Collection

Henri Seyrig (1895–1973) was a prolific scholar of art, archaeology and ancient religion. Between 1929 and 1941 he was director of antiquities of Syria and Lebanon (Amiet Reference Amiet1983: 19) and from 1946 to 1967 led the Institut français d'archéologie à Beyrouth (Seeden Reference Seeden and Meyers1997: 11). He began acquiring seals in the mid-1930s and continued to do so until 1965. The collection is now housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. According to his own writings, Seyrig considered it valuable to collect dealer derived seals for use as comparisons with excavated examples from Ras Shamra/Ugarit.

Depuis quelques années, j'ai réuni les empreintes de beaucoup de cachets, appartenant à des particuliers e surtout à des commerçants sur divers marchés du Levant. La majeure partie de ces empreintes verra le jour dans la publication des cylindres de Ras Shamra, où M. Schaeffer les utilisera comme termes de comparison (Seyrig Reference Seyrig1955: 29).

Although the complete collection remains formally unpublished, a considerable number of seals are available via the Bibliothèque nationale de France's online database. For convenience, acquisition details of seven of the eight OSPS seals from the Seyrig collection seals known to this author are provided here as table 1.Footnote 25

Table 1:

Seyrig Collection OSPS seals in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)

Only BnF 1980.292.5 (Fig. 6) is provided with a find-spot but, rather surprisingly, this turns out to be the beach at Byblos—likely a dealer's attribution but it is also possible that the seal was picked up by Seyrig himself. Of this small group of seals, four are associated with Bostros whom I take to be a dealer.Footnote 26

Fig. 6

Modern impression of a cylinder seal, possibly chlorite, (2.03 × 1.08 cm), Collection Seyrig: BnF 1980.292.5. Photograph after Porada Reference Porada1966, courtesy of the département des Monnaies, médailles et antiques of the Bibliothèque nationale de France

Gift Virolleaud

An unpublished seal was gifted to the Louvre Museum in 1927 by Charles Virolleaud (Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 91).Footnote 27 He was head of the French antiquities department in Lebanon and Syria from 1920 to 1929 (Bordreuil Reference Bordreuil and Meyers1997: 304).

The Poche Collection

This collection was formed by Baron Guillaume Poche, consul general of Czechoslovakia in Aleppo during the 1930s to 1950s.Footnote 28 Images of the modern impressions of cylinder seals from this collection were privately printed by A. Schmidt (c.Reference Schmidt1930). Eighteen seals from the Poche Collection are relevant to this study and one is illustrated here (Fig. 7).Footnote 29 Otto Weber included one seal in his general study of glyptic (Reference Weber1920: no. 278a, 59; Schmidt c. 1930: no. 120; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 283). Seven of the Poche seals are now in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan P. Rosen in New York (henceforth Rosen Collection); a further two seals were gifted to the Pierpont Morgan Library by Rosen in 1988, demonstrating that the Poche Collection was already dispersed by the 1980s.Footnote 30

Fig. 7

Modern impression of a cylinder seal (height approximately 2 cm), ex-coll Poche, current location unknown. Photograph after Schmidt c. 1930 no. 125

The Marcopoli Collection

The Marcopoli Collection as catalogued by Beatrice Teissier in 1984 included 643 cylinders, of which thirty-two are OSPS seals (Porter Reference Porter2001: 13–15, n. 3).Footnote 31 This collection was initiated in the late nineteenth century by members of the Marcopoli family who were residents of Aleppo since the early eighteenth century and some family members held the title of hereditary Italian consul. The last owner of the collection in Syria was Paolo Marcopoli who is said to have greatly enlarged it (Teissier Reference Teissier1987: 58). He sold it around 1978 with the hope that it would be kept together (Teissier Reference Teissier1984: xvii) but in 1993 the collection was sold and dispersed. One example is illustrated here as Fig. 8.Footnote 32

Fig. 8

Modern impression of a chlorite cylinder seal (2.36 × 1.15 cm), ex-coll Marcopoli. Photograph by B.A. Porter; courtesy of the Rosen Collection, New York

OSPS seals in Swiss collections

The University of Fribourg

Fourteen seals from this university collection can be classified as OSPS (Keel-Leu and Teissier Reference Keel-Leu and Teissier2004: nos. 284–97). A substantial part of the University's seal collection, known today as “Bibel + Orient”, is from the collection formed by Rudolf Schmidt (1900–1970) during the 1930s and 1940s. His sister Mrs. Peters Schmidt gifted the material as a study collection to the university in 1981 along with the relevant documentation (Keel-Leu and Teissier Reference Keel-Leu and Teissier2004: xiv). Other seals in the collection are derived from dispersed collections, i.e. von Aulock, Brett, Erlenmeyer, Marcopoli, Moore, Sarre (Keel-Leu and Teisser 2004: xiii–xvi; Collon Reference Collon2005/2006: 387). This fairly recently arranged university collection is an example of the circulation of seals whose sources are not always easy to demonstrate and several examples were purchased on the art market in Europe and the Middle East in the 1980s.Footnote 33

The Erlenmeyer Collection

Five OSPS seals derive from the Erlenmeyer Collection (Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 9, 23, 30, 52, 294). Professor Hans Erlenmeyer (1900–1967) and his wife Marie-Louise (1912–1997) formed their collection between 1943 and the 1960s. The collection was never published in full although the Erlenmeyers wrote some articles which included a few of their seals (e.g. Erlenmeyer Reference Erlenmeyer and Erlenmeyer1961, Reference Erlenmeyer and Erlenmeyer1966). In the 1990s seals from the Erlenmeyer collection were sold at auction, and those catalogues constitute the main published record.Footnote 34 One seal in the 1992 London Sotheby's auction (catalogue no. 114) is now in the Rosen Collection (Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 294). Three other OSPS seals stem from these auctions including the one illustrated here as Fig. 9.Footnote 35 This cylinder seal was evidently excavated at Ugarit/Ras Shamra by Claude Schaeffer; it was first published by Amiet (Reference Amiet1992: 17, no. 8) who records that it was discovered in 1937 on the acropolis in Late Bronze Age layers and subsequently deposited in the National Museum, Damascus.Footnote 36

Fig. 9

Modern impression of a black stone cylinder seal, (2.4 × 1.3 cm), Ras Shamra RS 9.024, ex-coll Erlenmeyer, current location unknown. Photograph courtesy of Pierre Amiet

The value of acquisition histories

In his analysis of the art of Middle Bronze Syria and Palestine, Harold Liebowitz suggested that studies of Syrian glyptic have historically been based primarily on purchased rather than excavated material (Liebowitz Reference Liebowitz1972: 392). This has to a certain extent shaped the way in which seal chronologies and typologies have been formulated. It was common practice to assume that seals bought from dealers, and the suggested provenances that came with them, could contribute to a better understanding of their use and chronology. However, by the early twentieth century some scholars already understood that scientifically excavated and recorded objects had to serve as the cornerstone for scholarship, Footnote 37 such that David Hogarth could write in 1920 (vi–vii):

For, during my first two years of work on the Ashmolean collection, I had learned that no archaeological classification by periods and localities was feasible on the facts thus far ascertained. In all collections alike an overwhelming proportion (in some collections, all) of the specimens have been acquired with either no, or the vaguest and least trustworthy, data of provenance and original association. Most, in fact have passed through several hands before reaching dealers far from their land of discovery. Nor, but for new facts ascertained subsequently, should I now be making the attempt which this book embodies. Since 1911, however, certain results of the British Museum's excavation of Carchemish, and still more of the indefatigable inquiries prosecuted by the excavators, Messrs. Woolley and Lawrence, into the circumstances under which the Hittite glyptic objects brought to them from a wide surrounding area had been found, have begun to put a new face on the problem.

Such an approach inevitably helps to remove the contamination of the past by misinformation provided by dealers and the introduction into scholarship of modern forgeries (see for example Muscarella Reference Muscarella1984; Reference Muscarella2000: 21; Kersel Reference Kersel2004: 103). Although no doubt debates will continue about whether unprovenanced material should be published, some scholars acknowledge the need to include legacy collections as part of research (Cherry Reference Cherry, Rutz and Kersel2014: 240). While recognizing the absolute value of seals excavated as part of scientific archaeological investigations, the imposition of a blanket ban on publication of all unprovenanced material would, in my opinion, be counterproductive. As I have attempted to demonstrate here, properly researched acquisition histories can correct misinformation as well provide case studies for the growing scholarly interest in the history of collecting itself (e.g. Pearce Reference Pearce1995). Studies of popular styles within glyptic imagery of Middle Bronze Syria and Anatolia will surely be enhanced by future archaeological work in Turkey and final publication of past excavations in Syria but acquisition histories can play an important role in our understanding of them.

Footnotes

*

As many of Dominique Collon's recent articles have been included in volumes in honor of her colleagues, it is a pleasure to offer here some insights into the acquisition history of a selection of the seals included in my doctoral thesis, which owes so very much to her. The details presented here derive from research for a Columbia University dissertation entitled Old Syrian Popular Style Cylinder Seals (Porter 2001). The basis for the investigation of this seal type evolved out of a seminar conducted by Edith Porada and John M. Russell in spring 1989 at Columbia University. My research started under the aegis of Edith Porada (see, for example, Porada 1993: 575, n. 40), with whom I conferred closely while forming the corpus, and she was able to attend my first lecture on this subject in April 1990 as part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's colloquium for fellows. In the end, this doctoral study was completed under the guidance of Dominique, who had studied with Dr. Porada in the late 1960s and defended her Columbia dissertation in 1971 (Collon 1975), thus she returned to New York thirty years later for the other side of the table. A few of the seals discussed here and in the dissertation were included in Dominique's book First Impressions: Cylinder Seals in the Ancient Near East (Collon 1987; 2005).

1 I am grateful to Edith Porada for providing me with a modern impression of this seal, photographed as Fig. 1.

2 The use of “Old Syrian” and “popular” within glyptic studies is not used consistently (Porter Reference Porter2001: 155–70, 592–601) and I have followed in part Amiet for Elamite seals (Reference Amiet1972: 239–57). The term “popular” has been used to define seal designs not found frequently as impressions and these seals have been therefore understood as belonging to the non-élite and/or people without administrative roles. For recent discussion of related seal terminology see Battini Reference Battini, Bieliński, Gawlikowski, Koliński, Ławecka, Sołtysiak and Wygnańska2014; Di Paolo Reference Di Paolo, Bieliński, Gawlikowski, Koliński, Ławecka, Sołtysiak and Wygnańska2014.

3 For seals published before 1992 I have discussed the contexts in detail in my dissertation (Porter Reference Porter2001: 34–117). Recent publications have expanded the corpus further (Porter Reference Porter2001: 85–86, 92–93, n. 25) and additional OSPS seals are now known from the following sites: Tell Mardikh/Ebla (Hammade Reference Hammade. and Stehle1994: nos. 347, 369, 371, 382; Matthiae et al. Reference Matthiae, Pinnock and Matthiae1995: nos. 249–250; Mazzoni Reference Mazzoni, Erkanal, Donbaz and Uguroglu1998: 515–16, pl. 151:3), Chatal Höyük (Emberling Reference Emberling2010: 164, fig. 2); Tatarlı Höyük (Girginer and Collon Reference Girginer and Collon2014: A.1 and A.2, 63–64); and Tall Bi‘a (Otto Reference Otto2004: M1, 133, fig. 23, pl. 6; Strommenger Reference Strommenger1994: 22, 26, fig. 16; Porter Reference Porter2001: 106, n. 62). Two OSPS sealings are also known from Tall Bi‘a (Otto Reference Otto2004: M5, fig. 20, pl. 6; and M91, fig. 54, pl. 13) and they augment the small number of OSPS seals known from ancient impressions. An important discovery was the recovery of both the ancient OSPS seal and its ancient impression on a bulla during the 1988 excavations at Hammam et Turkman (Meijer Reference Meijer1989: 2, 6, 11, figs. 6–7; Meijer Reference Meijer, van der Hout and de Roos1995: 195–97, 201–202, pl. 21–23; Porter Reference Porter2001: 11, 16–17, n. 10, 62–63, 1298, no. 345).

4 See also Zettler Reference Zettler1993: 230–31, n. 17. Other examples where purchased seals are provided with specific site attributions include: Qatna (du Mesnil Reference du Mesnil du Buisson1928: 85, pl. 36:3; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 125) and Kültepe (Özgüç Reference Özgüç1968: 70, pl. 28: 2–3; Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 317, 343). These were, however, all likely purchased locally by the excavators (Porter Reference Porter2001: 12, 18–19, n. 15).

5 The cylinder is housed in the Rockefeller Museum, accession number 32.51.

6 See also Collon Reference Collon1987: 41–43, no. 143; Porter Reference Porter2001: 1336–37, no. 383.

7 http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=435457&partId=1&searchText=1898,1020.2&page=1

Ready was employed by the museum until around 1884 in the capacity of “repairer and cleaner of antiquities” but became a dealer as indicated by the fact that from 1886 he started selling antiquities to the museum. His brothers, Augustus and Charles, also were restorers and the former became part of the permanent staff in 1897, the year before this seal was purchased (Wilson Reference Wilson2002: 357, n.128)

8 These seals are Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 29, 35, 47, 49, 73, 131, 177, 218, 336, 338, 370, 388; three were published by Frankfort (Reference Frankfort1939: pl. 40b, 40f, 41d),

9 For a comprehensive study of the seals recovered at Alalakh, see Collon Reference Collon1982. Relevant seals and one impression were also excavated at Alalakh after World War II, (seals: Woolley Reference Woolley1955: nos. 2, 3, 23; Collon Reference Collon1982: nos. 8, 11, 9; Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 275, 394, 273; impression: Woolley Reference Woolley1955: no. 5; Collon Reference Collon1975: no. 1; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 86).

10 Other relevant seals were excavated at Ugarit after World War II in the years 1950 to 1962 (Amiet Reference Amiet1992: nos. 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15; Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 382, 111, 62, 44, 158, 205).

11 An unprovenanced OSPS seal (ME 89835) entered the collections of the British Museum in 1870 but no details of its earlier acquisition history are known to me. I am grateful to Dominique Collon for alerting me to the existence of this seal (Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 48). Also two seals were in the collection of the Musées Royaux du Cinquantenaire in Brussels and included in the 1917 publication by Louis Speleers (1917: no. 42 (collection Hagemens) and no. 168 (purchased in Syria) (Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 122 and 168). The dates when they entered this collection were not clarified for this article and they are not included in this discussion.

12 Joachim Ménant (1820–1899) was a prolific writer on both glyptic and cuneiform studies. Henri Frankfort referred to him as “that pioneer in our field” (1939: xiii).

13 J.P.A. van der Vin, personal communication.

14 I am grateful to Heikki Pauts, the Registrar of the National Museum of Antiquities, who provided this information as well as the seal's accession number GS-30143. The seal may be viewed on Museum's comprehensive website: www.rmo.nl/collectie/zoeken?object+GS-30143.

15 Lajard records that the seal derived from the collection of M. Cl. Scott Stewart and—erroneously—that it was acquired by the British Museum (1847: index). I am grateful to Elizabeth Williams for providing me with the impression illustrated here. She collected impressions of Syrian seals in Paris at the time of preparing her Columbia dissertation (Williams Forte Reference Williams Forte1982).

16 For the other seal see Lajard Reference Lajard1847: pl. 41, fig. 4; Delaporte Reference Delaporte1910: no. 423; Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 128.

17 This seal depicts two standing male figures facing each other and is of a type that was first systematically studied by Stefania Mazzoni (Reference Mazzoni1975). Fol ventured to call the seal Assyrian and in the description included the classical reference for the two similar standing figures as the dioscouri (Fol Reference Fol1875: 79).

18 Ariane Thomas, personal communication.

19 Béatrice Andre-Salvini, personal communication.

20 Of these four Ashmolean seals (Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 8, 87, 234, 254), two were published by Hogarth (Reference Hogarth1920: nos. 155 and 156, pl. 6). Buchanan states that Hogarth's seal number 156 was purchased in Beirut (as recorded in the Ashmolean's accession register) although Hogarth himself gives Aleppo. Samman (Reference Samman1997: 183) ascribes two of the seals (Buchanan Reference Buchanan1966: nos. 842 and 843) to the Poche collection but this seems to be a misreading of Porada (Reference Porada1966: Appendix).

21 Lawrence claimed that “to buy antikas is a sport, not commerce” (Wilson Reference Wilson1990: 101).

22 For photographs of three of the OSPS seals see also von der Osten 1934: nos. 56, 279, 287; Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 159, 16, 224.

23 G.A. Eisen (1846–1940), had an extraordinarily wide range of interests; how a naturalist who became an expert on the California raisin industry and saved parts of the giant sequoias in the Sierra Nevada came to write this catalogue published in the Oriental Institute Publication series (available via the Oriental Institute's website) certainly merits further research.

24 Brooks Levy, personal communication.

25 http://medaillesetantiques.bnf.fr. Two seals were published by Porada (Reference Porada1966: pl. 17, fig. c and pl. 18, fig. f) and a third by Amiet (Reference Amiet1963: fig. 31) (Porter Reference Porter2001: nos. 99, 266, 22). My thanks to Mathilde Avisseau-Broustet, the conservateur en chef au départment des Monnaies, médailles et antiques at the Bibliothèque nationale de France for permission to include this seal here and for informing me that the on-line information was made available based on the study by Ariane Thomas, now conservateur du patrimoine at the Louvre. One seal (Seyrig no. 184: Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 67) was not available on the Bnf website and was made known to me through an impression lent by Elizabeth Williams.

26 Of the approximately 160 Seyrig seals identified on the BnF online database, sixty-three were acquired between 1934 and 1965 through Bostros.

27 My thanks to Elizabeth Williams for making her impression of this seal available to me and to Annie Caubet and Béatrice André-Salvini of the Louvre for permission to include this seal in my dissertation study.

28 See Schmidt c.1930; Samman Reference Samman1997: 183; and references in Safadi Reference Safadi1966, Reference Safadi1974.

29 I am very grateful to Beate Salje for providing contact sheets of the seals in the Poche Collection.

30 The family is of French origin and seems to have resided in Aleppo since the early nineteenth century; family members served over the years as consular officials of several nationalities. The resident consuls in Aleppo were also often businessmen of substance. The residence of the Poche family was filled with antiques and interesting paintings (David and Degeorge Reference David and Degeorge2002: 8–9, 240–41).

31 The Marcopoli seals identified as OSPS are Teissier Reference Teissier1984: nos. 336, 352–74, 375–80, 414, 415, 428, 558–60. Of these twenty–three are now in the Rosen Collection having been acquired at auction (Christie's New York 1993).

32 The modern impression in Fig. 8 was kindly provided by Sidney Babcock.

33 Of the OSPS seals in the University of Fribourg one comes from the original Schmidt Collection (no. 284); others were acquired in the mid-1980s in Damascus (nos. 285, 289) and Europe (nos. 286, 287, 297 (Porter Reference Porter2001: no. 253)) and eight are attributed to the Lebanese collector Maurice Tabet (nos. 288, 290–96) (per Keel-Leu and Teissier Reference Keel-Leu and Teissier2004: 248–56).

34 Sotheby's London 1992; Bonhams Reference Bonhams1999a, Reference Bonhams1999b and Reference Bonhams1999c.

35 Bonhams Reference Bonhams1999a: lot 52, 140; 1999b: no. 368 [2 of 2], 104 (here Fig. 9); and 1999c: lot no. 243 [1 of 4], 54; Porter Reference Porter2001 nos. 9, 52, 23.

36 The seals in the National Museum of Damascus have not been published. This seal (Fig. 9) was included in a study on the ball staff motifs (Porter Reference Porter2001a) as was Morgan 1094 (illustrated here as Fig. 1).

37 I am grateful to Morag Kersel for sharing with me her thoughts about the antiquities trade (see for example, Kersel Reference Kersel, Skeates, McDavid and Carman2012, with references to earlier publications) and suggesting I undertake this study of provenance history. Joanna Smith addresses the importance of the clarification of context (Smith Reference Smith2008: 186) that has been also emphasized here.

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Figure 0

Fig. 1 Modern impression of a dark green stone cylinder seal, (2.54 × 1.3 cm), Morgan 1094. Photograph by B.A. Porter, courtesy of The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York

Figure 1

Fig. 2 Modern impression of a burnt hematite cylinder seal, (2.0 x .9 cm), GR 1898,1020.2. Photograph courtesy Trustees of the British Museum

Figure 2

Fig. 3 Modern impression of a cylinder seal, possibly serpentine, (2.4 × 1.2 cm), Delaporte 58. Photograph by B.A. Porter; courtesy of Elizabeth Williams and the département des Monnaies, médailles et antiques of the Bibliothèque nationale de France

Figure 3

Fig. 4 Modern impression of a black stone cylinder seal, (1.8 × 1.0 cm), Collection Fol: MF 1384. Photograph after Vollenweider 1967, courtesy of the Musée d'Art et d'Historie de Genève

Figure 4

Fig. 5 Modern impression of a dark stone cylinder seal, (1.3 × 1.0 cm), AO 22437. Photograph by B.A. Porter; courtesy of Elizabeth Williams and department des Antiquités orientales of the Musée du Louvre

Figure 5

Table 1: Seyrig Collection OSPS seals in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)

Figure 6

Fig. 6 Modern impression of a cylinder seal, possibly chlorite, (2.03 × 1.08 cm), Collection Seyrig: BnF 1980.292.5. Photograph after Porada 1966, courtesy of the département des Monnaies, médailles et antiques of the Bibliothèque nationale de France

Figure 7

Fig. 7 Modern impression of a cylinder seal (height approximately 2 cm), ex-coll Poche, current location unknown. Photograph after Schmidt c. 1930 no. 125

Figure 8

Fig. 8 Modern impression of a chlorite cylinder seal (2.36 × 1.15 cm), ex-coll Marcopoli. Photograph by B.A. Porter; courtesy of the Rosen Collection, New York

Figure 9

Fig. 9 Modern impression of a black stone cylinder seal, (2.4 × 1.3 cm), Ras Shamra RS 9.024, ex-coll Erlenmeyer, current location unknown. Photograph courtesy of Pierre Amiet