After the Persian conquest the victors adopted the cylinder
form of the conquered, and continued to use it. A Persian
cylinder seal of Darius (probably about 500 B.C.) in the British
Museum shows the king in his chariot, transfixing a lion with his
arrows, in a palm wood. Above is the winged emblem of the
Persian deity Ahuramazda. The inscription gives the name and
titles of Darius in the Persian, Scythic and Babylonian languages.
The style is accurate and minute. The idea of the lion hunt is
borrowed from the Assyrian monuments, but the engraver has
been careful to make the necessary changes of costume and
treatment. The cylinder was, as might be anticipated, imitated
to a certain extent by peoples of the Eastern world in touch with
Babylonia. It occurs in Armenia, Media and Elam. It has been
found in Crete (British School Annual, viii. p. 77) and is frequent
in the early Cypriote deposits. In some instances it has been
found unfinished and therefore must be supposed to be of local
manufacture. Sometimes a direct imitation of cuneiform
characters occurs on the Cypriote cylinders. The same form was
also employed by the Phoenicians (about the 8th century-7th
century B.C.). By the Greeks and Etruscans it was used,
but only rarely, and by way of exception.
Egypt.—We must go back to the remotest periods for the origin of intaglio engraving in Egypt. Recent discoveries of tombs of the earliest dynasties at Abydos and Nagada have thrown much light on the early stages of Egyptian art, and have revealed the remarkable fact that in Egypt (as in Babylonia) the cylinder was the earliest form used for the purpose of a seal. The cylinders that have been found are comparatively few in number; but a large number of jar-stoppings of clay are preserved on which cylinder designs have been rolled off while the clay was still soft. Such early incised cylinders as are extant are made either of hard wood or (as in an instance in the British Museum) of stone. The identity of form has been thought to indicate a connexion with Babylonia, but none can be traced in the designs of the respective cylinders.
The Egyptians of the earliest dynasties had an admirable command of hard stones, as shown by their beads and stone vases, but with the exception of the cylinders quoted they are not known to have applied their skill to the production of intaglios. At this early period the scarab (or beetle) was still unknown as a gem-form. It was only about the time of the 4th dynasty that the scarab (q.v.) was first introduced, and gradually took the place of the cylinder as the prevailing shape.
The Scarabaeus sacer (Egyptian, Kheperer), rolling its eggs in a ball of mud, became the accepted emblem of the sun-god, and so the form had an amuletic value. Scarabs of obsidian and crystal date back to the 4th dynasty. Others, coarse and uninscribed, belong to the beginning of the first Theban empire. After the 18th dynasty they are counted by thousands. While the beetle form was naturalistically treated, the flat surface underneath was well adapted to receive a hieroglyphic sign. The scarabs, however, are by no means the only product of the art. We have also figures of all kinds in the round and in intaglio—statuettes, figures of animals and of deities, and sacred emblems such as the ankh (or crux ansata) and the eye. Among interesting variations from the scarab form is the oblong intaglio of green jasper in the Louvre (Gazette arch., 1878, p. 41) with a design on both sides. It represents on the obverse Tethmosis (Thothmes) II. (1800 B.C.) slaying a lion, and identified by his cartouche. On the reverse we have the same king drawing his bow against his enemies from a war chariot. The scarabs of Egypt though uninteresting in themselves, considered as examples of engraving, have this accidental importance in the history of art, that they furnished the Phoenicians with a model which they were able to improve as regards the intaglio by a more free spirit of design, gathered partly from Egypt and partly from Assyria. The scarab thus improved exercised a lasting influence on the later history, since, as will be seen below, it was adopted and modified both by Greeks and Etruscans.
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| Fig. 1.—Jewish High Priest’s Breastplate. |
Engraved Gems in the Bible.—While the Phoenicians have left actual specimens to show with what skill they could adopt the systems of gem-engraving prevailing at their time in Egypt and Assyria, the Israelites, on the other hand, have left records to prove, if not their skill, at least the estimation in which they held engraved gems. “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond” (Jerem. xvii. 1). To pledge his word Judah gave Tamar his signet, with its cord for suspension, and staff (Gen. xxxviii. 18); whence if this passage be compared with the frequent use of “seal” in a metaphorical sense in the Bible, and with the usage of the Babylonians of carrying a seal with an emblem engraved on it recorded by Herodotus, it may be concluded that among the Israelites also every man of mark at least wore a signet. Their acquaintance with the use of seals in Egypt and Assyria is seen in the statement that Pharaoh gave Joseph his signet ring as a badge of investiture (Gen. xli. 42), and that the stone which closed the den of lions was sealed by Darius with his own signet and with the signet of his lords (Daniel vi. 17). Then as to the stones which were most prized, Ezekiel (xxviii. 13), speaking of the prince of Tyre, mentions “the sardius, the topaz and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald and the carbuncle,” stones which again occur in that most memorable of records, the description of the breastplate of the high priest (Exodus xxviii. 16-21, and xxxix. 8-14). Twelve stones grouped in four rows, each with three specimens, may be arranged on a square, so as to have the rows placed either vertically or horizontally. If they are to cover the whole square, then, unless the gold mounts supplied the necessary compensation, they must be cut in an oblong form, and if the names engraved on them are to run lengthwise, as is the manner of Assyrian cylinders, then the stones, to be legible, must be grouped in four horizontal rows of three each. There is in fact no reason to suppose that the gems of the breastplate were in any other form than that of cylinders such as abounded to the knowledge of the Israelites, with this possibility, however, that they may have been cut lengthways into half-cylinders like a fragmentary one of sard in the British Museum, which has been mounted in bronze, and, as a remarkable exception, has been set with three small precious stones now missing. It could not have been a seal, because of this setting, and because the inscription is not reversed. The names of the twelve tribes, not their standards, as has been thought, may have been engraved in this fashion, just as on the two onyx stones in the preceding verses (Exodus xxviii. 9-11), where there can be no question but that actual names were incised. On these two stones the order of the names was according to primogeniture, and this, it is likely, would apply to the breastplate also. The accompanying diagram will show how the stones, supposing them to have been cylinders or half-cylinders, may have been arranged consistently with the
