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Ch. 4: Engraved Gems as Talismans

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122 THE CURIOUS LORE OP PRECIOUS STONES
a large conch shell from the Persian Gulf. From 2500 b.c. to 500 b.c the cylindrical form was prevalent, and the materials include a brick-red ferruginous quartz, red hematite (an iron ore), and chalcedony, a beautiful variety of the last-named stone known as sapphirine be­ing sometimes used. On the cylinders produced from 4000 b.c. to 2500 b.c. the designs most frequently represent animal forms; on those dating from 2500 b.c. to 500 b.c. are generally inscribed five or six rows of cuneiform characters. Up to the last-named date the work was all done by the sapphire point, and not by the wheel, and it is not until the fifth century b.c. that wheel work is apparent in any Babylonian or Assyrian stone-engraving. In the course of the sixth century b.c. the cylindrical seals became less frequent, and the tall cone-like seals came into use.11
A new type makes its appearance about the fifth or sixth century b.c, namely, the scaraboid seal introduced from Egypt. From the third century b.c. until the second or third century a.d., the seals became lower and flatter, and the perforation larger, until they sometimes assumed the form of rings; later the ring form becomes general. They are usually hollowed a little in the middle, which gives them the shape and size of the lower short joints of a reed; indeed, it has been suggested that the original seal was rudely patterned after a reed joint. The mate­rials used for these cylinders include lapis-lazuli, very freely used and probably from the Persian mines, jasper, rock-crystals, chalcedony, carnelian, agate, jade, etc.; a hard, black variety of serpentine is perhaps the most common of all the materials used for this purpose.12
"See Ward, "The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia," Carnegie Institution Pub., Washington, D. C, 1910, pp. 1-5. "Ward, 1. c, p. 5 and pp. 5-8.
Ch. 4: Engraved Gems as Talismans Page of 467 Ch. 4: Engraved Gems as Talismans
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