Heirloom cylinder seals at Mleiha (Sharjah Emirate, UAE)

Abstract

Very few cylinder seals are reported from South-East Arabia. This paper reports on two cylinder seals that were found as heirlooms at Mleiha, UAE. The first is a Neo-Assyrian seal with a ritual scene: kneeling worshippers around a tree of life. The second is a seal of local manufacture. The positioning of its image, a human figure holding an Arabian horned viper, is turned 90°, questioning whether it was ever used as a seal or rather worn as an amulet or bead. Local seal production and seal use are discussed. Seals from the Iron Age II suggest that the object is of local production, as does the iconography that can be linked to Iron Age snake cults in South-East Arabia. Comparable snake representations are, however, occasionally still found in the Mleiha/PIR period.