Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:37:00.516Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The early development of the lapidary engraving wheel in Mesopotamia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Margaret Sax ,
Nigel D. Meeks  and
Dominique Collon
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Traditional views on the development of rotary motion were outlined by Childe (1954). He envisaged a progressive development of a concept that had originated in prehistoric times. Thus, perforated artefacts composed of shell and soft stone from Upper Palaeolithic levels yielded the earliest evidence for hand-held drills (Semenov 1964: 74–8). At least seven thousand years later, during the second half of the fourth millennium, potters in several parts of the Near East, including southern Mesopotamia, made first use of rotary motion (Rice 1987: 12, 132–5). Pictographic signs inscribed on Mesopotamian tablets suggest that the first use of wheeled vehicles was also made at about this time (Piggott 1983: 38) and, for the past twenty five years, it has been thought that the introduction of the lapidary engraving wheel coincided approximately with these two other innovations (for example, see Nissen 1977: 16; Gwinnett and Gorelick 1979: 25–7; Collon 1986: 13–14). However, our recent observations on engraved cylinder seals suggest that the date of the first use of the lapidary wheel should be revised.

The fine intaglios of stone cylinder seals preserve detailed evidence for the lapidary technology of Mesopotamia and the surrounding areas of the Near East. A comparative study by the authors of the engraved features on these seals (Sax and Meeks 1995, see also 1994) and those produced experimentally (Sax et al. 1998) has shown that it is possible to identify the methods used to engrave the seals. The various techniques, tools and abrasive materials can usually be recognized from the characteristic morphology or “tool-marks” of engraved features.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 62 , 2000 , pp. 157 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boardman, J. 1970. Greek Gems and Finger Rings, Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Buchanan, B. 1970. Cylinder seal impressions in the Yale Babylonian collection illustrating a revolution in art circa 1700 BC, Yale University Library Gazette, pp. 53–65.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G. 1954. Rotary motion. In Singer, C., Holmyard, E. J. and Hall, A. R. (eds.), A History of Technology I, University Press, Oxford, pp. 187–215.Google Scholar
Collon, D. 1982. Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum, Cylinder Seals II, Akkadian, Post Akkadian, Ur III Periods, British Museum Publications, London.Google Scholar
Collon, D. 1986. Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum, Cylinder Seals III, Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian Periods, British Museum Publications, London.Google Scholar
Collon, D. 1987. First Impressions, Cylinder Seals in the Ancient Near East, British Museum Publications, London.Google Scholar
Collon, D. 1995. Ancient Near Eastern Art, British Museum Publications, London.Google Scholar
Collon, D. in press. Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum, Cylinder Seals V, Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Periods, British Museum Press, London.Google Scholar
Courty, M. and Roux, V.. 1995. Identification of wheel throwing on the basis of ceramic surface features and microfabrics, Journal of Archaeological Science 22, pp. 17–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankfort, H. 1939. Cylinder Seals, Macmillan and Co, London.Google Scholar
Gorelick, L. and Gwinnett, A. J. 1989. “Collars” in the holes of Near Eastern cylinder seals, Archaeomaterials 3/1, pp. 39–46.Google Scholar
Gwinnett, A. J. and Gorelick, L. 1979. Ancient lapidary: a study using scanning electron microscopy and functional analysis, Expedition 22/1, pp. 17–32.Google Scholar
Gwinnett, A. J. and Gorelick, L.. 1987. The change from stone drills to copper drills in Mesopotamia, Expedition 29/3, pp. 15–24.Google Scholar
Heimpel, W., Gorelick, L. and Gwinnett, A. J. 1988. Philological and archaeological evidence for the use of emery in the Bronze Age Near East, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 40/2, pp. 195–210.Google Scholar
Matthews, D. M. 1990. Principles of Composition in Near Eastern Glyptic of the Later Second Millennium BC, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, Series Archaeologica 8, Biblical Institute of the University of Fribourg.Google Scholar
Nissen, H. J. 1977. Aspects of the development of early cylinder seals. In Gibson, M. and Biggs, R. D. (eds.), Seals and Sealing in the Ancient Near East, Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 6, pp. 15–23, Undena Publications, Malibu.Google Scholar
Pientka, R. 1998. Die spätaltbabylonische Zeit, Abiešuh bis Samsuditana, Quellen, Jahresdaten, Geschichte I, Rhema-Verlag, Münster.Google Scholar
Piggott, S. 1983. The Earliest Wheeled Transport, from the Atlantic Coast to the Caspian Sea, Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1984. Approaches to Social Archaeology, Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Rice, P. M. 1987. Pottery Analysis, A Sourcebook, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Roux, V. and Courty, M. 1998. Identification of wheel-fashioning methods: technological analysis of 4th–3rd millennium BC oriental ceramics, Journal of Archaeological Science 25, pp. 747–63.Google Scholar
Sax, M. 1991. The composition of the materials of first millennium BC cylinder seals from Western Asia. In Bud, P., Chapman, B., Jackson, C., Janaway, R. and Ottaway, B. (eds.), Archaeological Sciences 1989, pp. 104–14, Oxbow, Oxford.Google Scholar
Sax, M. and Middleton, A. P. 1992. A system of nomenclature for quartz and its application to cylinder seals, Archaeometry 34/1, pp. 11–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sax, M. and N. D. Meeks 1994. The introduction of wheel cutting as a technique for engraving cylinder seals: its distinction from filing, Iraq 56, pp. 153–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sax, M. and Meeks, N. D.. 1995. Methods of engraving Mesopotamian quartz cylinder seals, Archaeometry 37/1, pp. 25–36.Google Scholar
Sax, M., McNabb, J. and N. D. Meeks 1998. Methods of engraving Mesopotamian cylinder seals: experimental confirmation, Archaeometry 40/1, pp. 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sax, M., Meeks, N. D. and Collon, D. in press. The introduction of the lapidary engraving wheel in Mesopotamia, Antiquity.Google Scholar
Semenov, S. A. 1964. Prehistoric Technology, an Experimental Study of the Oldest Tools and Artefacts from Traces of Manufacture and Wear (trans. Thompson, M. W.), Cory, Adams and Mackay, London.Google Scholar
Ward, W. H. 1910. The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, Publication 100, Carnegie Institution, Washington DC.Google Scholar