The Cylinder Seals of Qareh Tepe in Sagzabad, Iron Age II and III

ABSTRACT

During the four seasons of excavation (2015–2019) in the newly-discovered Iron Age II and III eastern cemetery of Qareh Tepe in Sagzabad, 40 cylinder seals were found in the trench 12 in 10 graves. All of these seals have been made from faience. According to the style and composition, they are divided into two distinct types; Local and Neo-Assyrian style. Local style includes abstract animals with long horns, human and animal, undulating ladder-patterned lines, and the oblique square with a diagonal line of the crosshatching. The procession of great bird seals that they have clearly been inspired by the Assyrian type, it can be said that they are probably a local version of an Assyrian type that were made in Iran. Presenting scenes of hunting, Neo-Assyrian style seals also show the expansion of the Assyrian cultural sphere to this region of Iran. Since all of these seals have been found from Qareh Tepe, and many of them have been discovered in women’s graves and some even in the graves of infants, they can be strong evidence of punctuation to administrative use, these seals were used in personal ornament necklaces and had possibly a religious function at the beginning of the Iron Age III.