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A  very well made fake.

 



Nothing to see in the cutting  or in the hole to give it away.








What's wrong with it?

(NB. This opinion is from someone who knows a great deal more about this subject than I do!)

 

1. The throne of the seated god is of Old Babylonian type (19th to 18th c. BC).

 

2. Akkadian seals do not have a line under the scene. Just occasionally there is one under the throne of the god, to indicate a dais.

 




3. The sun god holds his saw-toothed knife, but does not hold a sickle-sword. He does often rest on a mace or stick behind him and that is generally an attribute of the moon god, and, when the sun god has both attributes, he is being represented as a dual god of the day and the night. The closest parallel for this type of sickle sword is to be found on Late Babylonian seals of the 8th to 7th centuries BC.

 

4. It is normally men who carry animal offerings and the hairstyle of the woman has been misunderstood.

 

The seal is possibly based on copying this one  in part. Both gods, of the sun and the moon  are shown on this seal.



Is it a  fake copied from another fake!?

If the maker copied the figures from this seal, (the one below in the pic below) he also made a mistake as it's also a forgery!

 

It has Old Babylonian-inspired figures and an Akkadian woman, grouped in a rather un-Old Babylonian composition, plus a totally misunderstood lion-scimitar.

 



.

4th June '10

Update: about a year later.

As the auction house  has been informed I have disguised the pic and not volunteered it's identity. One hopes that the piece will be removed from sale.









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