Hunting and Shooting

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Abstract
When I was still a student, Dr. Barnett gave me the part-time job of sorting the cylinder seal collection in the Western Asiatic Department of the British Museum, of which he was then Keeper. Now, some twenty years later, the catalogue of Akkadian to Ur III seals, which this led to, has just appeared, and this article is based on two “firsts” (as S. N. Kramer would put it) to which my attention was drawn while I was studying the seals. I have found seals a fascinating and continuous source of inspiration and information and the fact that I am still writing about them after twenty years is a measure of the debt I owe Dr. Barnett.Hunting: Cylinder seal BM 105159 (Pl. XVII(a)), is cut with a presentation scene: a deity leads a worshipper before a seated god. Behind the worshipper is a figure (Pl. XVll(b)), who wears a skirt, raises his left arm and holds, in his right hand, what I thought was a footed cup in which was a stirring rod or spoon. However, when I took this, and other seals, to the British Museum (Natural History) for identification of the animals, it was pointed out to me, by Mr. Colton, that the “cup” might be a falcon sitting on a falconer's wrist.

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